


Welcome Home

by delcatty



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Backstory, Bipolar Disorder, Dysfunctional Family, Established Relationship, Extended Families, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family, Friendship, M/M, Muteness, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2017-12-07 13:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/748904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delcatty/pseuds/delcatty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of Ash's companions had met his mother—she had made sure of that—but the rest of his family were somewhat of a mystery.</p><p>In which the curtain is pulled to reveal Ash Ketchum's full family, and Ash learns that sometimes secrets should stay a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Favour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She never expected for him to call and ask to meet his family, to deal with everything that came after that. But he called anyway.

“I’m calling in a favour.”

Misty’s pixelated faced glared back at him. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest and she looked as ready to hear him out as he was ready to end the call.

After a few seconds of agonising silence, Ash continued.

“Every two years Pallet Town has this big weekend thing. It’s kind of tradition and a little mandatory, y’know? Like, ‘shame on your family if you don’t turn up’, and all that. Okay, maybe not that bad but I might have skipped the last like, five, or something because I’ve been in Johto, then Hoenn and Sinnoh, and now I’m in—”

“I know where you’ve been, Ash.” Misty replied as her eyes narrowed into slits. “What I want to know is why you’re asking _me_ for a favour, out of all the people you could have asked. Out of the people who owe you favours, maybe? If you haven’t forgotten you owe _me_ something.”

Ash sighed and rubbed the back of his head, leaning back in the plastic and uncomfortable pokémon center chair. He was positive they made them as unappealing as possible to discourage anyone from using the video phones for too long. At that thought he shot a look towards the nurse at the front desk. Joy gave him a disapproving look. He swivelled back to Misty quickly.

She looked angrier, somehow.

“Sorry. Well, I figure you’re pretty close, right? And you could probably get one of your sisters or even Tracey to look after the gym for a weekend. I’d have asked Iris but she’s a little, um, young?” he told her hesitantly.

Misty looked disgusted. “What exactly does this favour entail?”

“Oh, fuck.” Ash groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Nurse Joy shushed him, and he valiantly ignored her. “It’s nothing sexual, I swear. It’s a festival, Misty! I’m not doing anything illegal.”

“But you need a female who is over a certain age and close to Pallet,” she deadpanned. Her arms were still crossed. “Not that I don’t appreciate that you asked me, but it’s not like you to be so hesitant to go to a party – even a family safe one. You’re usually the first one to jump at these kinds of things. You’re Ash ‘life of the party’ Ketchum.”

He said something into his hands, muffled – whatever he said, Misty didn’t deem it necessary to continue the conversation.

When Misty didn’t say anything for a full minute, Ash raised his head to catch a glimpse of her. Her arms were unfolded and she had a pensive look on her face – hardly what he wanted to see, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“It’s just for this weekend!” He jumped on the opportunity as quickly as a pikachu’s thunderbolt hit its target. “You come as my date, say hi to my mother, we get some food and light some fireworks, and you can be back in your gym by Sunday night – _promise_.”

Misty sighed and shook her head, “You didn’t say anything about a date, Ash, though it wasn’t too difficult to work out. Why do you even need a date to this thing?”

“Ma.” He said blandly. “She was crying and everything – dunno how genuine it was though.”

“Ah.” She paused. “Why is it so important anyway? You go home to see your mother enough.”

“It’s a big thing,” he said swiftly. “I mean, most of the people in Pallet are recluses. They don’t go to Viridian’s big carnival every year. They just hold their own one with all their family and friends so no one has to leave their businesses closed for too long. Everyone is invited – all of Pallet goes to this thing. It’s our way of getting together and like cementing the bonds of a small town or something.”

Misty chuckled. “Yeah, don’t know much about that. In Cerulean you’d be lucky if your own neighbour knows your name.”

“Everyone in Pallet had seen me naked by the time I was one,” he deadpanned back at her. “I think Gary still has hard copies for future blackmail.”

“Smart boy.”

Ash paused, and snuck a look at her with a raised eyebrow, “Y’know,” he started. “Gary’s going to be there, too, if that sweetens the pot for you.”

“Thanks for your consideration,” she said dryly. “But I don’t need you hooking me up with Gary Oak while acting as your date – I’m hardly that desperate.”

“Oh yeah?” He teased. “Getting a lot of swimmer tail now that you’re a gym leader with a new haircut and everything?”

Misty huffed and smoothed down her hair, free of its usual ponytail, and said nothing.

“So will you do it?” He pleaded after a pause. “You’d be more like back up anyway – my extended family can be a little bit of a handful.”

“Aw, you’ve got an aunt who likes to pinch cheeks? No wonder you need me to save you.” Misty teased. Ash smiled, glad to be momentarily free of her ire. She was smiling, too.

“Less like aunts and uncles, more like a few older siblings who like to rub their accomplishments in my face whenever they can.” He said hesitantly, and smiled wistfully. “I figured you’d be sympathetic.”

Misty glared. The ire was firmly back in place.

“I’m going to ignore the latter and ask that you please go back to the former. You have siblings?” She asked slowly. “Why haven’t I met any of them? Why haven’t you even talked about them? Jeeze, Ash, I’ve known you for five years and I only now discover you’ve got brothers and sisters?”

 Ash could only shrug helplessly and attempt to answer the question he’d been asking himself for just as long.

“They’re difficult, y’know – family. I love my mother, but everyone else is... they’re too much,” he said, struggling to put his feelings into words. He looked around the pokémon center again and noticed less people there than before. It was dark outside and he felt a yawn coming on.

“Mist,” he said slowly. “I’m sorry for not telling you, really. If it’s any consolation, no one else knows. Well, Gary knows. But it’s not like I _told_ him.”

She sighed from her end of the line, and for a second even she looked like she couldn’t form the words she wanted to.

“I just always figured that I’m your best friend,” she said helplessly. “You go away to these far off regions and have all these adventures, but I’ve always known that you come home. That we can still hang out like we used to and talk and do stuff together,” Misty murmured.

Ash watched her quietly. He could hardly console her over the video call – he was bad enough with sad people in person. He watched as Misty bit her lip and clearly steeled herself.

“I’ll do it,” she said quickly. “You have your reasons, right?”

Ash nodded hesitantly, “of course.”

“Fine, I’ll be your date. You said this weekend, right? I’ll see you in three days at Viridian’s pokémon center – don’t be late,” she warned.

Ash smiled sadly, “thanks, Mist. I knew I could count on you.”

“No problem. But Ash–” she said quickly as he went to end the call. “I expect my own favour due.”

At that, she ended the call on her end leaving a very bewildered Ash. He stood up slowly, and laughed once it hit him.

Once he was back in his room at the pokémon centre, he picked up his sleeping pikachu and cuddled him close to his chest. Pikachu cooed and shifted but didn’t wake up.

“Where am I going to get a bike?”

—

“Just for the record,” she told him as soon as he walked through the doors of Viridian’s pokémon centre three days later, Pikachu perched on his shoulder. “I’m still not one hundred percent on board with this whole idea.”

Ash stopped in his tracks a few steps from the doors and looked at her blankly. This only aggravated her more. Pikachu jumped from his shoulder and bounded over to Misty happily. She immediately picked him up and placed him on her lap, scratching the pokémon behind the ears.

“I’ve gotten over the family thing, but I’m a little annoyed about it still. I mean, I’ve hardly demanded to see any aunts or uncles or grandparents, but these are your siblings. You grew up with them,” she blurted out. “Not to mention that I’ve been to your house more times I can count – your mom is the mother I never had. It’s just so much to take in, especially over video call,” she berated as he walked the last few steps to her where she was sitting. She paused and looked down at the chipped and worn red table as he sat down across from her wearily. “Well?”

He groaned in response and pulled off his cap. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he muttered as he ran a hand through his messy hair. “Gimme a break – it’s been a tough week. I’d still be in Unova if my mother didn’t decide my life for me.”

The frown that blossomed upon the girl’s face was deadly.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that, Misty. I’m always happy to see you,” he said with a smile.

Against her will a similar smile appeared on her face and she relaxed. “I’d hope so.”

Ash grinned and leant back against the uncomfortable chair. “I am sorry for springing this on you. I just have some issues, y’know? I’m the baby,” he laughed at himself unkindly. Misty looked at him with a furrowed brow. “I actually have three older siblings like you.”

“Why have you never talked about them before? I mean, my sisters can get on my nerves but I used to always talk about them.”

Ash raised an eyebrow, “I know it was five years ago now, but you didn’t exactly tell me and Brock about your sisters when we first met. We sorta just found out on accident.”

Misty sent him a sharp look. “You met my sisters after we had known each other for a week, Ash. I’ve been your friend for five years and I’ve never once even suspected that you had any other family than your mother.”

He winced and nodded, “yeah, uh. Sorry. Again.”

“You can stop saying sorry,” she said wryly as she got up and grabbed her bag. Pikachu jumped from her lap to her shoulder, and Ash shot the pokémon a betrayed look before following her.

“So,” she said and grinned. “Got my bike?”

Ash laughed, “of course I do! Who do you take me for? Someone who’d put it off for five years like a jerk?”

Ash and Misty rode their bikes – a brand new, sparkling red one for Misty – all the way to Pallet Town and didn’t speak of family once.

—

The dusty main road through Pallet was quiet as they biked into town. The streets were empty and stores were closed. The pair stopped their bikes in the middle of the street and looked around in confusion. They shared a worried look before pushing their bikes to a nearby park bench. Pikachu jumped out of the basket in front of Misty’s bike and ran off to explore his first home.

“Where is everyone?” Misty asked breathlessly, breaking the silence. Ash brought a water bottle out of his bag and tossed it to her before answering.

“Not sure. I usually avoid Pallet this time of year, so this could be normal. Maybe it’s a new traditional thing.”

“Maybe that’s why when people think of Pallet they think of me, while you’re the poor fourth Pallet trainer who was always miles behind me?”

 Misty squeaked, spun around – nearly knocking her bike over in the process – while Ash could only groan. “Still stuck fantasising about your glory days?”

Gary smirked, and reached up to pet Pikachu who was perched primly on his shoulder. Ash failed to muffle a mocking laugh as Pikachu bounded over to his trainer.

“Every time I see you in that lab coat I think you’re playing dress up with the professor’s clothes.”

He can faintly hear Misty sigh in the background before his former rival responded with a look of mock hurt on his face. “Damn, that one really cut deep. Been sleeping on that one for a while?”

The unimpressed look on Ash’s face was more than an answer. He was just about to open his mouth to retort when Misty jumped in between them, held up her hands to both and shook her head quickly.

“Nope. Nu uh. No way. This is technically a holiday for me, so you two are not going to _ruin_ this by _squabbling_ like my _sisters_!” She exclaimed forcefully, looking between them as she said so. “Got it?”

The two boys could do nothing but nod. Misty let out a relieved sigh before announcing that she was going to have a look around, and to behave while she was gone.

Once Misty was out of sight Gary sat down on the seat next to Ash. The two boys eyed each other for a few seconds before smiling slightly and relaxing. After everything they’d been through together, and the years that had passed since their ill fated rivalry at age ten, they had warmed to each other if only a little – enough to make stunted conversation at least.

“So,” Ash started as he stroked the dozing pikachu in his lap. “Do you know why it’s as empty as Lavender Town on Halloween?”

Gary laughed, “Yeah, looks the way, doesn’t it?” He shook his head in amusement and hooked his arms around the back of the seat before stretching out. “Nah, nothing that weird going on. Today is a public holiday.”

“Public holiday? Since when?”

Gary scoffed. “Since five years ago when the whole town complained that they never got enough time to spend with family during the festival. They caused such a ruckus they got their way. So everyone just spends today at home, catching up with visiting family and stuff like that. Everything should be back to normal tomorrow.”

Ash narrowed his eyes at Gary suspiciously. “How do _you_ know that?”

 “Because I’m a good boy who goes home for the holidays.”

He received a blank look in return. “Good boy my ass.”

Gary laughed loudly before a comfortable silence settled over the two of them. The two boys hadn’t had the time to see each other in a while – certainly not as much as they did when they were both travelling Kanto and Johto.

But they both understood that neither of them had as much time as they used to. With Ash conquering whatever region was next on his list and Gary jumping from laboratory to laboratory it was a miracle that they had both made it home for the holidays.

At that moment, Ash could almost say he missed the simpler days. Until Gary opened his mouth.

“Gingerbread, huh?”

Not quite seeing where Gary was going, Ash furrowed his eyebrows in question. The grin plastered on the brunet’s face made him more confused.

Gary elaborated. “I thought Dawn would’ve been more your type.”

“Wh– huh? No way, Dawn’s got a contest on – not to mention she’s in Sinnoh. That’s way too far away for just a weekend.”

“I meant – ugh, I _meant_ bringing Misty home to meet the family as a girlfriend. Boy, you are dense.”

Ash groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “It’s not like that and you know it – you’re trying to get me angry, it’s not gonna work!” He exclaimed.

Gary laughed. “You have grown up! What a surprise. But real girlfriend or not, it’s gonna be an interesting reunion.” He said and laughed. “I can’t believe you brought a girl as your girlfriend in the first place.”

“I asked Misty because Mom said I had to bring a date. Dunno why, though.”

“Probably because of the rumours,” Gary sung. Ash looked at him suspiciously, but the other boy didn’t elaborate.

“So you went crawling to Gingerbread?” He continued. “I could’ve hooked you up with one of my old cheerleaders, man. Then you would’ve been able to keep the deep, dark secret of your mom’s demon spawn away from Misty.” He failed to bite back a laugh. “She’s gonna run screaming when she meets your horrible family, you know.”

Ash’s response was to bury his face into his hands and groan. Pikachu made a noise of annoyance as he was jostled before settling back down sleepily.

“Oh, don’t you worry, I know.” He stayed in the same position for a few moments before he sat up and looked at Gary with one eyebrow raised. “And those were your brother’s cheerleaders and you know it.”

The youngest Oak waved the insult off as Misty came back, holding a newspaper and a chocolate bar in her hand. “Cheerleaders? Who are we talking about?” She asked around her own chocolate bar in her mouth.

“Shitty brothers and even shittier friends,” Gary snarked, grabbing the other bar as Misty went to hand it to Ash.

At Ash’s lack of reaction as Gary tucked into his stolen candy, Misty raised her hand and placed it to his forehead.

“Are you _sick_?”

Ash shook his head, and leaned into her hand.

Misty sighed. “You must be worried.”

Gary snorted. “He has good fucking reason to.” Misty glared and whacked his arm as Ash sunk lower into the seat.

Gary chuckled and finished off the rest of the chocolate quickly. “Right, I want to avoid any more bodily harm, so I’m off to meet the rest of the family at Gramp’s lab.” He stood up, scratched Pikachu behind the ears, and waved as he made his way down the road. “Have fun with the Ketchums, lovebirds!” He called out, not being able to leave before getting one more dig in. His laughter could be heard down the street long after he was out of sight.

Once Gary was gone, Ash looked over at Misty and stifled a laugh at the sight of her bright red face.

“Shut up, Ash!” She yelled, and gave him his own arm whack.

 The two sat in comfortable silence for a little while longer simply soaking up the afternoon Pallet sunshine. They revelled in the feeling of the cool sea breeze from the south wash over them, and hearing the pleasant chirps of the pidgey in the trees above them.

“You warned me about your family,” Misty broke the silence quietly. “And Gary finds the idea of me meeting them hilarious. Are they that bad?”

“You have no idea.”

—

There was screaming coming from inside the house when they approached. The Ketchum family home was never all that big – it was small and quaint and perfect for a single mother with a young son and Mimey. But apparently there were many more people who called the small cottage home than Misty had first assumed.

Misty tugged on Ash’s sleeve. “How many people are going to be here again?” She whispered furiously. “Because it sounds like a rhyhorn got loose!”

Ash laughed and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Well, we’re a few days late so everyone should be here already, so that makes about, uh, five people? More if they brought dates. There’s me and you as well – so around about eight or nine of us.”

She shook her head quickly, “No way is there only five people in there, Ash!”

From within, a loud crash could be heard followed by a high pitched voice.

“You idiot you’re supposed to go left, left, right, up, select, _down_ not left, left, right, up, select, _across_!”

“Oh my god, shut up you hag, let me play _my_ game _my_ way!”

“Oh, hell no! Those psychic brats from Hoenn are _not_ beating us again just because you can’t remember the right move combo, you dolt!”

Misty sent a wide eyed look in Ash’s direction but the boy could only shrug and step up to the door. Just as he went to turn the doorknob all activity inside the house came to a stop and became chillingly silent. Ash had turned around and looked at Misty, concern etched over his face, when the front door thrown open with surprising force.

Standing side by side in the doorway was a girl and a boy. They were in their late teens with caramel coloured hair, matching brown eyes, and identical mischievous grins. They were clearly twins, and despite the lack of colour similarities they were inexplicably Ash’s siblings.

After a moment Ash broke the silence.

“So uh, hey guys.”

He barely had time to get that out before the verbal attack.

“Long time since I’ve seen _you_ , Ashy!”

“Been far too long, little bro! Where’ve ya been?”

“Jeeze, you didn’t even _think_ about ringing, did you?!”

“Pretty dickish move you pulled, leaving me with the harpy.”

“Mom’s been worried sick!”

“And you run off with this hot chick. She’s the Cerulean Gym leader, isn’t she? Yeah, I battled her sisters once! I won, too.”

Once they had run out of insults and questions, the twins reluctantly let them go inside, eyeing them as they did so. Ash’s Pikachu immediately bounded over to two larger pikachu who were sleeping on a set of pokémon beds near the couch.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Ashy?” The girl questioned as she stuck her lip out into a pout and crossed her arms.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Misty, these are my twin siblings,” he introduced and pointed at the girl, “that’s Leaf,” he pointed at the boy, “and that’s Fire. There’s only one year between us, but they act like I’m five.”

Fire walked up to Misty before grasping her hand and smiling at her charmingly, “now, I’m not sure if you remember me, but I battled your sisters a while ago! I suppose I was just a precocious thirteen year old back then.” He looked over at Ash and smirked. “Probably about the same height Ash is now.”

The very much so sixteen year old boy glared at his elder brother, but otherwise said nothing as his sister inspected him.

“You really haven’t done a good job in looking after yourself, Ashy. How long have you had this jacket? A month, I bet. It’s practically falling to pieces.” Leaf berated as she walked around him, plucking at his clothes as she went. Ash desperately wanted to go see how Misty was faring with Fire not so subtly hitting on her, but when Leaf started her ranting it was always difficult to get her to stop. “Ma’s not going to be happy, you know.” She remarked.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Leaf opened her mouth to continue when a blaring sound came from the television where a brightly flashing game was previously set on pause.

“Oh, damn!” She exclaimed, rushing back to her seat on the couch. “Fire, get your ass over here! Tate and Liza did their weird psychic mind tricks and unpaused us!”

Ash looked over at Fire but he appeared to be in deep flirtation with Misty, and it seemed as though he hadn’t even heard her over the sound of the video game. Or he was just ignoring her. It was hard to tell.

The noise only escalated when Leaf started yelling at the screen, swearing that she would swim to Hoenn to beat the twins up if they defeated her.

Ash debated going over to help his sister for a moment before a new dainty voice chimed in with Leaf’s.

“Ehehehe, yeah! Suck it!”

“Lyra?”

WINNER flashed on the screen and Leaf let out a whoop of excitement before running off to berate Fire. The other girl in question twisted around on the couch and threw a smile at Ash.

“Hey, Ash! Long time no see, huh?”

“What are you doing here?” He exclaimed and went to hug her. Last time he’d seen Lyra she was leaving to finish gaining all her Johto badges. The last place her expected to see her was here.

“Silly! I’m here with your brother but he’s sleeping now, the big dork – right in the middle of the day, too. I tell him over and over that he shouldn’t stay up so late! It’s from spending all that time in caves brooding,” She said, giggling. “Anyway, we met up in Blackthorn and he invited me to come meet his family,” she shook her head, “I never expected that he meant you, Ash! Are you here with Dawn?”

Ash shook his head dumbly. “Uh, no, with Misty,” he muttered and pointed at the red head, who had finally been released from Fire’s yapping thanks to Leaf, and was making her way over to the couch. The twins could be heard fighting in the background.

“Oooh, she’s the one you like, isn’t she!” Lyra exclaimed. “Brock told me all about her!”

Ash sent a panicked look Lyra’s way, silently begging her to shut up.

“You like who?” Misty asked suspiciously as she got closer. “You better not be talking about this person with me as your date! Even you have better manners than that, Ash.” She said scornfully with her hands on her hips.

Ash could only mumble making Misty frown. Lyra simply grinned.

Misty opened her mouth to say something when the sound of the door closing upstairs made the Ketchum siblings freeze. Misty could see Leaf as she chucked an anxious look towards the kitchen where Delia was no doubt cooking lunch.

Misty turned to Lyra with a raised eyebrow, but she looked equally as confused. “Who is–?” Misty started to ask, but Ash quickly shushed her.

The floor boards from upstairs creaked as someone slowly made their way down the hallway, to the staircase, down the stairs and into the living room.

Misty knew there was going to be a few people in the house, and logically knew from what Ash had told her that a fair few of those people were going to be Ash’s family – his siblings, in fact. Fire and Leaf were almost exactly what she pictured when she thought of Ash having an older brother and sister. They were brash and loud, they liked to tease Ash, and they were almost like copies of him with Delia’s colouring. But this person, this person who Misty could only assume was Ash’s eldest brother, was nothing how she imagined.

Misty never expected him to be so underwhelming. She never once thought he would have a perpetually bored look on his face, with lacklustre red eyes and smooth-not-spiky black hair. She never expected him to be so serious and unemotional, and she had certainly never expected him to be so famous.

Lyra was the first to break the silence.

“You’re Red!”


	2. The Lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misty thought her own family had issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features actions of a character with bipolar disorder. I am not bipolar nor do I know of anyone with bipolar disorder. I have researched the condition but I am by no means an expert. I intend to elaborate on the character's condition further in the next chapter, but if my representation in this chapter is offensive to you, please contact me.

Samuel Oak was sheepish, Daisy was annoyed, Gary was impatient, and Green was nowhere to be found. It was lunchtime during one of the only weekends of the entire year they all had off and Daisy had made sandwiches for everyone, something Gary had sorely missed while he was away researching. He knew for a fact that it was also something that Green missed, despite the fact that he was a few hours away from Pallet and that he had gotten into the bad habit of leaving his gym unattended for days on end.

That being said, it was one of the only weekends a year they could spend together and _still get paid_ – a far more accurate statement for Green Oak, and he wasn’t even spending it with his currently irate family. Although it was hardly a new development considering his recent romantic entanglements if one believed the rumours, but a nuisance for his exasperated relatives nonetheless.

“He’s at Delia’s, isn’t he?” Daisy deadpanned, and Oak shot her a cursory warning look.

“It doesn’t matter where he _is_ ,” he replied to his granddaughter evenly. “What matters is that he isn’t here with us where he should be.”

Gary snorted and reached over the dining table to Daisy’s abandoned plate, dragging it towards him.

“Well he was here yesterday,” Daisy shot back. “But he took off in the afternoon and he hasn’t been back since. Grandpa, he didn’t even take any clean underwear,” she whispered conspiratorially.

Oak placed a comforting hand on Daisy’s shoulder while Gary laughed obnoxiously with a mouthful of sandwich.

“I don’t think he’s had a _need_ for underwear, Daisy,” he snarked at her. Daisy whipped her head around and glared at her youngest brother.

“Don’t you dare,” she threatened. “Green is a good boy and so is Red. They wouldn’t be doing that with all those people at the Ketchum’s – Delia would find them in a second.”

“Or Mimey would...” Oak trailed off in the background as he wandered off into the kitchen. His grandchildren ignored him.

Gary grinned and shoved the last bite into his mouth.

“Red is quieter than a sleeping metapod and I’m pretty sure the underwear Greem _was_ wearing could be made into a gag or something,” Gary said and watched passively as his sister grew redder and redder. “They’re teenagers – of course they’re going to be fucking.”

—

While Misty and Lyra were staring slack jawed at the champion, Delia had walked into the room rubbing a tea towel idly between her hands. She smiled and made her way over to where Misty was standing.

“Misty, sweetheart! I haven’t seen you in years!” She exclaimed and brought the younger girl into a tight hug. Misty hugged back on instinct, and briefly smelt sweet roselia perfume before she pulled away. “You’ve been at your gym, haven’t you? I’ve been hearing wonderful things from Samuel – apparently Cerulean Gym is in the top three gyms in Kanto! I wonder who’s to thank for that?” She asked and winked.

Misty laughed and blushed, “Honestly, it’s not just me. My sisters bring in a lot of revenue with their shows, and Tracey has been a lifesaver.”

Delia giggled, “He was always such a useful young man! So clean, and what a good artist,” she said and sighed. “Say, dear, has he been drawing you things? Ooh, maybe he’s drawing you! Secretly, he’s pining over you! Oh–”

“Delia,” Misty interrupted. She could hear Ash choking in the background. “I’m here with Ash today,” she said slowly. If she was honest with herself, the blush that bloomed on her cheeks was only partly good acting. “Tracey is just a friend.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Delia said softly, and smiled slyly. “Well, it’s lovely to have you here, my dear. Make yourself at home.”

“Will do.” Misty said as Delia walked over to the base of the stairs. Misty shot a desperate look over her shoulder at Ash who was wearing one similar.

Delia placed one hand on her hip with the other on the banister of the stairs, and smiled indulgently at her firstborn.

“Red honey, what are you doing holed up in that room of yours? I know I said I’d keep it clean for you, but I didn’t think you’d be spending all your time there when you come home!” She berated him gently, smiling the only way a mother can. “Why don’t you come down and play video games, hmm? Or talk to Misty and Lyra – I’m sure they’d love to get to know you.”

At the mention of their names, the girls spun around and raced back to the couch in an attempt to appear nonchalant. Red’s gaze moved to them as Delia returned to the kitchen, humming. Ash watched the retreating back of his mother and cringed.

“She’s going to be horrible,” Fire muttered as he walked back over to the couch and squeezed in between Misty and Lyra. Leaf walked over a second later and chucked him the second controller. She sat down on the floor directly in front of him and started the game again, leaning against her brother’s legs.

“She has the whole family around for the first time in god knows how long. Of course she’s gonna be off her rocker – this is like, every dream she’s ever had for the last five years,” she remarked, and looked behind her at their guests before facing the television again, “The whole family plus extras.”

“I feel sorry for Mimey,” Ash muttered as he stalked towards the stairs – towards the brother he hadn’t seen for years.

Misty and Lyra were still slightly awestruck. They watched as Ash drew Red into a brief but clearly meaningful hug – something that obviously meant a lot to both boys. Misty knew, and so did Lyra to a degree, that Ash was a passionate person. He liked life, and people, and affection. He hugged people often out of happiness, or gratitude, or love. As Misty watched him hug his eldest brother, she could almost believe it was all three this time. Ash pulled away from a generally unresponsive Red and patted his back roughly. He whispered something that Misty couldn’t hear. Just as quickly as it happened, it was over and he was walking over to the couch to sit down.

Misty blinked and looked away from the awkward champion and tried to forget about it.

“Yo, bro,” Fire stage whispered as he delivered a combo attack to the pixelated solrock, “If you wanna do it, you better do it now. I think Mom’s almost done with lunch.”

Red nodded wordlessly – the first show of comprehension Misty had seen so far – and walked back up the stairs before going into a room. The sound of a door opening and shutting could be heard over the video game.

“He’s got jerk senior in there, huh?” Ash asked from his spot next to Leaf and in front of Misty.

Misty stared at the back of his head for moment before slipping her foot down and poking his side with it. From behind him she could see him grin slightly before grabbing her foot and clearly taking it hostage.

“Yep,” Leaf replied brusquely. “I told him to go ‘round to the lab instead ‘cause Oak’s cooler with the whole staying the night thing than Ma, but he’s doing his hermit thing again – doesn’t want to leave his room. I have no clue how he survived on the top of that mountain for so long, all that space and everything.” She said and cursed as a lunatone defeated her swampert with a well timed psychic attack.

Fire laughed and she threw her controller over her head onto Fire’s lap, hoping that her aim wasn’t off. A second later his laughter cut off, followed quickly by a groan of pain.

“Next time,” she said cheerfully, “We’re playing the Kanto version, okay? Screw Tate and Liza, the Hoenn version is too weird.”

“Is the space clear?” A voice whispered from the top of the stairs. Misty twisted herself around to stare at the new person past Fire’s thick hair.

If there was any confusion about who this person was, it was quickly eradicated. There was no chance this boy was anyone but Gary Oak’s older brother. The same hair and face, the same lilting swagger to their steps, the overly cocky smirk in place. Except this version of Gary currently had his hand around the waist of the other version of Ash. The sight of the two of them – close enough to be copies of Gary and Ash – was enough to make Misty very bewildered.

Red quickly extracted himself from the other boy’s grip and pulled him down the stairs and to the door by his wrist. His expression clearly showed that he was uncomfortable, but the Gary clone seemed oblivious to his discomfort.

“Aw, trying to get rid of me that quickly, Red? I wanna talk to your siblings! I haven’t seen Ash for what, eight years?”

Ash jumped up from the couch and threw his arms around Gary clone, equally as oblivious to his brother.

Misty watched them catch up with a suspicious eyebrow raised – the situation was just too strange to comprehend. She was completely aware that Ash and Gary had ironed out their differences years ago, sometime after Gary became a full time researcher rather than a full time jerk. But there was still that rivalry there – a hesitance to be fully open with each other due to their past – that dictated most of their actions, as mundane as they were. But the image of Ash hugging the Gary clone was almost as bad as seeing the Gary clone and the Ash clone walk down the stairs together as though they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t.

“Whatcha been up to?” Gary clone asked Ash as they sat down on the second couch. In the interim Leaf had wandered into the kitchen to help her mother with food preparations, Misty assumed.  Lyra had managed to get herself a seat in Fire’s lap, her legs in Misty’s, and the two of them had started a new level of the video game. It looked like they had given up trying to defeat the other twins from Hoenn, since they were now battling a volbeat and illumise team with a bellossom and mightyena.

Red was still standing by the door.

Misty pulled herself out from Lyra’s legs and walked over to him hesitantly. She prided herself in being a friendly person – _to most people_ , her mind corrected – but that didn’t mean it was easy for her. She experienced the same sort of anxiety anyone else did when meeting a new person. Except, perhaps, for the Ketchums: a bond was created between her and Ash almost immediately after their first meeting when he destroyed her bike, Delia had treated Misty as her own daughter the moment she met her, and from the small amount of time she had spent around Fire and Leaf they were the same – warm, friendly, accepting. Misty was the same but just with a little less enthusiasm. She was beginning to think the Ketchums were the exception – if one didn’t count Red, that is.

She could feel a knot form in her stomach as she approached the eldest brother. He looked awkward and unsure, whether it be from his whatever-he-is Gary clone and little brother speaking or from Misty’s own presence, she wasn’t sure.

“Hi,” she said brightly with a – regrettably forced – smile on her face. “Red, right? Well, duh. Of course you’re Red – everyone knows who you are!” He winced. “Oh, t-that’s not a bad thing! I mean, you did so much good all those years ago with Team Rocket!” He started to turn away, but she was in this now. She couldn’t stop now, so she scrambled to think of something to say to keep him there. This was Ash’s family – she was going to at least try. “I remember being pretty young living in Cerulean when all these Rocket members showed up at the gym,” she said quietly. Red stopped but didn’t turn around. “My dad was a police officer at the time and he was called out to a robbery, so it was just Mama and my sisters there. Mama was the gym leader then, so it was up to her to defend us. She had a pretty strong vaporeon, but most of her pokémon were weak from battle. They, ah–” She paused, and could swear she felt Ash’s gaze on the back of her neck as she talked. She didn’t dare turn around though. She swallowed and continued, “Anyway, Daddy came home later and told all of us about a really brave trainer who helped a civilian get something back from Team Rocket. He said his name was Red.” She could see that he was listening, despite his blank expression, so she continued with a smile. “So when Daddy pointed you out on the tv during the league championships, I rooted for you! My sisters had a thing for Lance and thought he was going to win, so it was pretty cool to rub it in their faces when _you_ did.”

She was aware that Lyra and Fire were still pretty engrossed in their game, and Leaf was still out of the room, but Ash and Gary clone were staring at the two of them intently. Misty felt her face heat up with embarrassment. She smiled awkwardly, and was about to go back to the couch when she was stopped. Red’s hand was around her wrist holding her, gently but firmly.

Misty raised her head and looked at him questioningly. Red ducked his head but didn’t let go of her.

“Your mother’s vaporeon,” he said quietly, so quietly that Misty almost missed it. Surely the others did. “What happened?”

She stood there gaping like a goldeen for a few seconds before her brain kicked in.

“Oh, uh,” she bit her lip and spoke just as quietly as he did. “They stole it. Mama retired the next day.”

Red nodded solemnly and let go of her. Ignoring the curious gazes of the people in the room, he walked over to Gary clone and grabbed his upper arm, pulling him to his feet.

“Wha– huh? Where’re we goin’?” He asked, bewildered. Ash shot Misty a questioning look and she looked away.

Red and Gary clone were at the door, almost having escaped, when a gasp came from the other side of the room.

“Green Oak as I live and breathe!” Delia exclaimed, dropping the whisk she had in her hand. “I haven’t seen you for eight years!” She made her way quickly across the room to embrace the boy.

Misty quickly got out of her way as she came barrelling in to hug the boy – _Green_ , her mind supplied. She was beginning to think that Delia and Mrs. Oak had to have been friends when they were pregnant.

Delia furrowed her eyebrows through her smile as she pulled back, “Green, honey, your shirt is on backwards.”

Green’s eyes went dangerously wide as he scrambled back from her. Everyone’s heads in the room swivelled towards the two of them, besides Red who simply looked put out.

“Uh, yeah – I was a little, uh, preoccupied this morning! Y’know, with Daisy and Gary and Gramps being around, it’s a little too much to handle!” He exclaimed as he held his hands up in front of him as though it was protect him. “I was just leaving!” He finished, and spun around to escape.

Delia frowned, “Didn’t you just get here?”

Green turned around slowly and shook his head. He threw a desperate glance towards Red but the boy stayed silent.

Leaf chose this opportune moment to wander out of the kitchen.

“He just came over to invite us all ‘round to the lab for dinner tonight. Real sweet of him, I know, but he can’t stay.” She said brusquely as she walked over to him. She grabbed his collar and opened the door, throwing him out. “You owe me,” she whispered to him under her breath.

Green could only nod furiously as the door was slammed in his face. Leaf turned around to face the room and smiled.

“Let’s get back to lunch, Ma. I think the potatoes are almost ready.”

Delia blinked in a daze but followed her daughter back into the kitchen. The rest of the room let out a relieved sigh. It was silent for a few seconds after that. Misty and Red were resolutely not looking at each other, Ash and Fire appeared disgusted, and Lyra was clearly feeling extremely awkward.

“Uhm,” she said hesitantly. “I think I’m gonna go take a nap with your brother! Call me when lunch is ready!” Lyra exclaimed and rushed out of the room, narrowly missing kneeling on Fire’s junk as she got up.

At that, the room began to move again. Red shot Misty a peculiar look as he passed her and walked up the stairs back to his room – Misty followed his form the entire way, still not entirely sure what to make of him.

With Red out of the room, she felt as though she could breathe again.

“Hey, Misty. Have you ever been to Hoenn?”

—

Green tried to sneak back into the lab without anyone noticing. In hindsight, he should have remembered what family he belonged to. With the exception of the professor’s bouts of amnesia and inability to differentiate between genders, the Oaks were as sharp as the stinger on a beedrill.

He was specifically sneaking in through the backdoor that connected to the kitchen when Daisy burst into the room.

“And where have you been?” She asked, her hands were on her hips and a frown was on her face. “You missed dinner last night, not to mention breakfast _and_ lunch today. You better have a good reason to skipping out on us! Gary said you’ve been over at the Ketchums gallivanting about with Red, but I said ‘no, Gary, don’t think of your brother like that – he’s a good boy, I bet he has a good reason for missing family time’, so you better not let me down.” She paused and furrowed her brows. “Why is your shirt on backwards?”

Green blinked slowly and attempted to work through his sister’s quick words.

“Now, I’ve only just woken up like fifteen minutes ago,” he said. Daisy winced. “My reasons for being at the Ketchums were this: I wanted to create some happy, safe memories between me and Red because the last time we spent the night together my balls almost froze off.”

Daisy and Green turned their heads as Gary started laughing in the living room, followed by the Professor’s befuddled questioning.

Daisy sighed and turned back to Green. “I really didn’t need to know that. You could have been more delicate.”

“Sorry for offending your sensibilities,” he said wryly as he wandered over and opened the fridge. He pulled out a plate holding sandwiches with a sticky note attached clearly reading ‘for the asshole’ – and assumed it was his – before turning back to her. “But if I’d put it ‘delicately’ you would have pried anyway. Then I would have really offended you.” He finished with a grin and made his way into the living room. Daisy was hot on his heels.

“I would not!” She retorted indignantly once he was sitting down in front of the tv, Gary at his left. Professor Oak was reading a newspaper in the old, raggedy armchair next to them. “I respect your personal space – you’re a gym leader now, and while I’m not happy that you don’t come home as often as you could, I understand that you’re not a little boy anymore. You can go and have your–your _trysts_ with whoever you wish. I just,” she paused and bit her lip. “I just wished that you’d spend as much time with us as you do with the Ketchums.”

“I don’t.” Daisy threw Gary a dark look but he continued on regardless. “And he’s not spending quality family time with the Ketchums, Dais. He’s bumping uglies with Red every chance he can get. Pretty disgusting really – I’m barely keeping myself from moving knowing he hasn’t had a shower since yesterday morning.”

“I’m actually trying to forget this entire encounter now. Thanks, Gary.” Daisy huffed and sat in the other armchair in the room. “Did you even say hello to Delia? I think she misses having kids around at her place – she told me that she can’t wait for grandchildren.”

Green almost choked on a bite of his sandwich. “Grandkids?! I doubt that’ll happen for a while.”

Daisy frowned and leant forward. “And why is that? I wanna be an aunt, Green! You’re the only one in a stable relationship.”

“Stable? They see each other every six months when Green can be bothered to drag his sorry ass up that mountain – and that’s usually only to fuck,” Gary snarked as he flicked through television channels. He settled on a rerun of _Regions of Our Love_. At that, Daisy got up and left the room in a huff, heading towards the kitchen again.

“Language,” Oak drawled from his own chair without putting down the newspaper. “And change the channel, I don’t like this season.”

Gary sighed and swapped it to a live battle from the Vermillion gym.

Green sighed and slouched into Gary, much to the dismay of the younger brother. “I wish I had your job, Gary. I hate being stuck in the gym – I wanna travel and see the world and be able to visit Red more often. You went to Kalos recently, didn’t you? Bet it’s nice there. Nice and warm.”

Gary pushed his brother off of him and into the floor. “Hell yeah it was nice there – lots of pretty Kalosian girls, too. You know the champion is that famous actress, uh, y’know – she was in that _Girl with the Dragonite Tattoo_ movie – short, dark hair, total babe.”

Green pointed a finger at him and thought for a few seconds. “...Diantha!”

Gary grinned and nodded, “Yeah, yeah. That’s her! She’s good friends with Professor Sycamore so we met up one day and had coffee at this café. She was cool.”

Daisy hummed as she re-entered the room with two mugs, “She’s a model and a novice breeder, too. She specialises in a specific species of synchronistic ralts. I could take or leave her movies, though.” She said as she stepped over Green’s form on the floor and handed a mug over to Oak. She sat back down in her chair and sipped. “Too complicated for me.”

Green frowned as he finished the last bite of his sandwich and motioned to Daisy’s, “Hey, why didn’t you get me some coffee?”

Daisy raised an eyebrow. “It’s tea. You don’t like tea. And get off the floor.”

He shrugged. “I would’ve liked the option.” He said, but got up regardless. “Speaking of...”

Daisy moaned, “What have you done?”

“I didn’t do anything, it was that harpy Bl–Leaf. She volunteered us to host dinner here tonight!”

“What do you mean volunteered us?” She asked scathingly as she stood and started to pace. Her abandoned mug was quickly stolen by Green. “I think you mean, ‘sorry, Daisy. I accidentally said you would cook for ten people tonight – whoops!’ How close am I?”

Green shrugged and took a big gulp before she snatched it back from him. “Not really close. Leaf did volunteer us – eh, _you_ – but she did it to get me out of the house. But Delia noticed my shirt.” He said and plucked the offending item, its tag sticking out and scratching his throat. “It was gonna go ass up pretty quickly after that. Oh, and it’s more like twelve people – at least.”

Daisy rubbed a hand down her face with her free hand and shook her head. “You idiot.”

“Hey!”

Daisy marched into the kitchen and came back with a plastic card. “Grandpa, we’re going out to get groceries – using the lab card is okay, right?” Oak looked up, confused, but Daisy continued on without pause. “Gary, you’re coming with me. I need someone to carry the bags.”

Gary looked at her warily. “Can we take the Ferrari?”

Daisy nodded.

“Sweet! I’m in,” he said and ran upstairs to get the keys.

Daisy gave Green a biting look as she got her purse and shoes. “Clean up the place a little while we’re gone, or go and help Grandpa at the lab,” she said derisively as Gary bounded down the stairs again. The two of them were almost out the front door when she turned back around. “Oh, and take a shower. You smell disgusting.”

—

Lunch was an awkward affair.

Misty and Ash sat beside each other, with Fire and Leaf opposite them. A begrudging Red sat at the end of the table, with a space open at the top of the table for Delia. There were spaces left empty next to Misty and Fire for their other two sleeping guests.

“Should I go and wake them up?” Ash asked his mother hesitantly. He was clearly asking out of courtesy, and Misty couldn’t blame him. Having a ‘nap’ could very well be a code for something a lot different. She knew that every time Lily was off to meet one of her boyfriends she’d say she was ‘going for a walk’ and would inevitably end up coming home at two in the afternoon the next day wearing the same dress.

“No, no, dear. They travelled quite a long way from Johto – they only arrived this morning, actually. The darlings were so tired. I’m surprised Lyra managed to stay up at all!” Delia replied, smiling. “Oh! I’ll be back in a second – I think I missed a dish!”

The table was already packed to the brim with food courtesy of Delia’s cooking. Misty looked at the array of food with wide eyes. Ever since her parents had left to travel the world on the St. Anne the food at the Cerulean gym had been scarce at best, although neither her mother nor her father had been very attentive parents beforehand. Daisy, Lily, and Violet were all equally hopeless at cooking and Misty only knew what little she had learned from Brock during their travels. It turned out that Tracey was a godsend in multiple ways – he could cook tasty, if simple, meals that managed to satisfy the four sisters. Although Misty often missed Brock’s cooking she was more than happy with the new arrangement and increased his salary because of it.

Misty looked around the table at the silent Ketchums and briefly thought them spoilt. Delia’s cooking was a gift.

Leaf was the only one of Delia’s children who had the ability not to burn whatever she cooked, so she had helped minutely. Knowing this, Misty spoke up in hopes of dispelling the awkward atmosphere.

“It looks really delicious, Leaf. I can’t wait to dig in!”

Leaf smiled and opened her mouth to reply when Fire laughed loudly.

“Leaf did jack shit. She set the table and from the looks of it diced an onion,” he retorted.

Leaf glared at him with telltale red rimmed eyes. “At least I don’t burn _toast_.”

“Your toast is as black as your shrivelled old heart. Don’t lie, Leaf, it’s unbecoming of you.”

“At least I’ve tried to improve my cooking skills – you’ve always been shit in the kitchen.”

“Well–so have you!”

Leaf came up short. “...you don’t know that,” she said quietly and bit her lip. The room went silent, and Misty looked around at everyone, confused. Red looked tense, Ash looked worried, and Fire looked remorseful.

“Sorry,” he murmured back and looked down at his empty plate. His hand rose to his head as though to pull a hat down, but stuttered when he realised it was hanging up on the coat rack along with four others.

 “Well, the table set up is lovely,” Misty stuttered awkwardly, apologetic that it was her question that started it. Leaf sent her a tiny smile and thanked her.

Delia chose that moment to enter the room again, holding three new dishes in her hands. Misty jumped up to grab two bowls from her arms, with the ulterior motive to dispel the every growing awkward silence.

Oblivious to the tension in the room, Delia surveyed the dining table with her hands on her hips. With a happy sigh she finally sat down at the head of the table.

Only then did she notice that no one was moving. Misty looked down at her lap with wide eyes as Delia’s stare grew sharp.

“Now,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening but all I want is a nice lunch with my family. So, eat and be happy.” She said firmly and began filling up her plate. Slowly, everyone else did the same and soon the conversation was flowing a bit more smoothly.

Misty shot a questioning look in Ash’s direction when everyone was distracted by a story Fire was telling Red about a particular battle. The boy saw her look but pointedly ignored her. Misty glared at him for a second, confused. Clearly there was more to Ash’s family than she initially thought.

“So there I was – down only to Lapras against this girl’s empoleon,” Fire said to Red, although the other boy was looking quite intently at his plate. It looked almost like he wasn’t even listening. “It was pretty close, ‘cause we were just firing water attacks at each other. I was waiting for the second she used a steel attack on Lapras – steels vs. ice is pretty basic stuff, y’know? But she never did! I managed to corner Empoleon with a body slam and won the match. She was pretty pissy with me after that. People should be better losers.”

“You’re a horrible loser,” Ash snarked through a mouthful of food. “You cried last time Leaf beat you.”

“Hey! That was one on one, and she cheated!” Leaf raised eyebrow. “Don’t look at me like that – you chose Blastoise against Charizard. Of course I was going to lose.”

“You just told us a story where your ice type overcame a steel type,” she said sardonically. “Not to mention that a trainer’s true worth is based in the love and trust they have in the pokémon, not type match ups.”

“Shut up, Leaf.” Fire grumbled and shovelled more food into his mouth.

Reminded of his pokémon, Ash looked over his shoulder at the three pikachu in the corner eating out of bowls. Each bowl was named – one with _Pika_ , one with _Chuchu_ , and the third with simply _Pikachu_. Misty noticed he wasn’t eating and turned around as well.

“You’re the only one not to name your pikachu. That doesn’t really surprise me.” She said and Delia giggled.

Ash glared as Fire noticed they were talking about the pikachu. “Mine’s the best, y’know. Her name’s Chuchu. Red’s is Pika.”

“I like her flower,” she said, referring to the little red flower tucked behind Chuchu’s ear. If realising that she was being talked about Chuchu looked up from her bowl and squeaked happily before returning to her meal. Misty smiled. “She’s adorable.”

“Too little,” Leaf grumbled.

“Huh?”

“They’re too little to battle with,” she clarified. “I’d feel bad sending them into battle.”

Fire rolled his eyes. “You had a jigglypuff for ages before you evolved her – didn’t you ever feel bad about battling with her?”

“Nope. Jigglypuff was a travel only pokémon.”

Misty scrunched up her face. “How do you travel... oh!” She exclaimed. “Duh, I see – as a travelling partner.”

Leaf gave a grin that took up her whole face. “You’d think so.”

Misty furrowed her eyebrows, and went to ask what she meant when Delia piped up.

“Red!” She exclaimed. “How’s Vee? I haven’t seen him for so long. He was such a good companion. I loved those nights when you were home – Vee could curl up in my lap at night and fall straight to sleep, the dear.”

Misty was surprised that she was addressing her eldest with a question – from what she had seen of him, he was rue to speak in front of people he didn’t know – like her – if he was even willing to speak at lengths at all. But Delia had asked him a question that required more than a motion of his head. She snuck a look towards Red curiously, and was immensely surprised to see a smile on his face.

“He’s great!” He exclaimed, sending Misty reeling. “I think he should’ve been a glaceon, he loves the snow on Mt. Silver so much – I always catch him running around and playing around in it. He’s so funny,” he said quickly, as though he couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “But there’s no Ice Rock in Kanto, so I guess there would’ve been no chance of it happening. There’s one in Sinnoh, but that’s ages away. I hear glaceons are pretty common overseas in western regions since there are more weird rocks there. Anyway, you wanna see him? I have him right here.”

Misty watched, barely containing her confusion as Red pulled a pokéball from his waist and throwing it violently – in the house no less. The ball ricocheted off of a cabinet – causing everyone else in the room to wince – and into the middle of the room where an espeon appeared. The pokémon looked momentarily confused about the surroundings before jumping up onto his owners lap.

“I haven’t introduced him to Gary’s umbreon yet – I was wondering if I should? I don’t have a lot of experience with eevees and its evolutions and I’m worried that they’re competitive around others of their own species. I mean, Vee’s been a vaporeon, and a jolteon, and a flareon, but he’s never been around other eevee evolutions. Well, apart from Green’s eevee but she totally doesn’t count.”

Misty could see Leaf and Fire across from her pointedly avoiding looking at Red, while Ash was extremely focused on shovelling more food into his mouth. She looked at Delia and was surprised at the mother’s expression of pain.

“Red, honey,” she said, her voice brittle. “Why don’t you have some more food? You’ve barely touched it.”

Red shrugged and lifted Vee off of his lap and onto the floor. “I think I’m gonna go for a bike ride. I haven’t been on one of those for a while! Maybe I’ll go and see if the professor needs help with dinner – I’m sure Leaf surprised him with her offer!” He exclaimed and laughed as he ran around the house gathering his stuff.

Once his hat was on his head he waved at his silent family and took off out the door, Vee and Pika hot on his heels. The door slammed behind him.

The silence that overtook the room was stifling, but Misty was too nervous to break it. The siblings went back to their meal quietly but Delia got up sharply.

“Excuse me,” she murmured softly before retreating upstairs. A door could faintly be heard clicking shut.

Fire let out a sigh and dropped his fork loudly. “Fuck me.”

“He hasn’t done that in a while, has he?” Leaf asked as she pushed her plate away from herself.

“I dunno,” Ash muttered. “I’ve barely seen him for the past eight years. You guys know more about him than I do.”

Fire shook his head and rubbed his eyes wearily. “It’s been a while. I don’t know what he’s like on that mountain, but he’s always... always _quiet_ when I go to visit him.” The words were forced out, as though it pained him to say it.

Leaf bit her lip before getting up to begin clearing the table. Plates of food were left over. “I think I prefer the quiet Red. At least you know what he’ll do when he’s quiet,” she muttered as she stacked dishes. Despite her confusion and shock, Misty stared to help out too and eventually so did Ash. But Fire stayed still.

“The quiet Red is the worst Red,” Fire mumbled after a while, eyes downcast. “The quiet Red isn’t my brother.”


	3. Interlude One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delia is a true Ketchum, through and through.

There was never any doubt that Delia was a Ketchum through and through. She smiled at the elderly, volunteered at hospitals, and rescued orphaned or abused pokémon whenever she could. She had strong morals and was intelligent in a practical way. She was average at school, and took a while to realise things. She could be oblivious to the point of ridiculousness, but that trait only seemed to endear her to others. 

Delia had many traits that were considered traditionally Ketchum. Her childhood neighbours would always comment on her good deeds, and her father would ruffle her hair proudly, stating loudly that she was most certainly his daughter, that he was proud of her, that she was just like her grandmother. Delia was a Ketchum because she was a good person and loved very deeply, very quickly. But like all Ketchums, she never allowed anyone to push her around.

Delia displayed Ketchum traits from a young age, and as she got older, her father could only worry as her love of pokémon grew. Because everyone knew that Ketchums simply could not battle.

“No, no, Nidorina!” she crowed as her pokémon was hit by a water gun. “Dodge across – no, _across_!”

The boy across from her was probably around ten years old, if she gauged correctly. He was grinning smugly, with his stupid cap on backwards and his stupid trousers were all short and silly but his horsea was soundly defeating Nidorina regardless.

The boy shouted a swift command at his pokémon to finish her off with a focus energy and bubble combo. Delia froze as she saw the water type narrow its eyes at Nidorina before unleashing its attack. Nidorina gave one last pathetic growl before falling to the ground.

Delia returned her silently before walking up to the boy. She stood at least two heads above him – seventeen to his ten – and handed over the prize money after counting it out tersely. The boy grinned and saluted her before returning his own pokémon and running off.

She looked down at the pokéball in her hand before walking in the opposite direction towards the pokémon center in Vermillion.

Delia had only walked a little ways out from the city to train, and had ended up losing to the first kid that challenged her. A kid who had probably only been travelling and training for a few months – Delia had been training for years, ever since she was allowed to have her own pokémon at age five.

Her father had taken her out to the National Park just outside of their hometown of Goldenrod and held her hand the entire time. Even when one little nidoran decided to come up to her and make friends, she continued to hold her father’s hand tightly. He didn’t even need to take out his own pokémon since Delia simply set down the pokéball she had clutched tightly in her other hand. The female nidoran walked straight up to the pokéball and nudged it. Seconds later, a bright red light shone and when it disappeared, she had caught her first pokémon.

That was twelve years ago. Her nidoran had evolved into a nidorina, but not much else had changed. Even when she turned ten and had the opportunity to leave on a journey, she refused. She had told her father that she wanted to train more, to let nidoran get stronger, to get more experience before they left together.

In truth, Delia was scared.

A year after she caught her nidoran, her next door neighbour left on her journey only to return home three weeks later alone with a broken wrist. She didn’t leave her house for a month afterwards, and a year later her parents moved them all to Fiore.

So yes, Delia was scared. She liked pokémon, and travelling, and even battling but the thought of being out past the walls of Goldenrod at age ten terrified her. She didn’t want only reach Azalea before getting hurt. She didn’t want her nidoran to be stolen from her, and she certainly didn’t want to become so terrified of battles that moving to a preservation region was the only answer.

As Delia got to the doors of the pokémon center, she could see the boy that had just beaten her in another pokémon battle with an older boy further up the road. The older boy’s rhyhorn looked particularly vicious as it tackled the horsea. Delia entered the center before she could see the rest.

The pokémon center was relatively empty, which surprised her. There was a sleeping trainer of indiscernible gender curled up uncomfortably in a booth and an older man in the corner who was reading the paper. Aside from them, there was a nurse at the counter. Delia walked up to her hesitantly, noting the lack of pink hair, and greeted her.

“I, um, need help?” she asked slowly, and handed Nidorina’s pokéball over with a hesitant smile, attempting to ignore the nurse’s disapproving look. Fruitlessly, it would seem, as the nurse began to berate her.

“One pokémon, I see? How old are you, dear?” the nurse asked as she placed the pokéball into the slot behind her. “You’re lucky she’s just knocked out. If you had done any more damage it would have been a very different story, young lady.”

Delia simply nodded as the nurse continued on, not paying attention to what she was saying.

It was something she got everywhere she went: how irresponsible she was, how old she was, how reckless she was. By the time she had made her way to Kanto she had heard it all, and then got to hear it all over again. She should have more pokémon – stronger ones, probably – and she really should’ve started when she was ten. If she had done that then she could have a big, strong team, she could have gotten all the badges, or be in another region. She could have moved on and taken up nursing or breeding or coordinating. And if pokémon training didn’t work out she could have gone back to school.

‘Could haves’ made up most of her conversations with those older than her. The generation before hers, the ones who had participated in the war, were the ones who seemed to have it out for her. She thanked a higher power every day that her father’s life long limp saved him.

And if she was honest with herself, battling ten year olds – no matter how humiliating when she inevitably lost – was still better than battling adults. Adults were mean. Adults told the truth. She learned to ignore them.

It wasn’t just that Delia started late due to fear. It wasn’t even that she only had one pokémon. The root of Delia’s problem was that – like all the Ketchums before her – she simply could not battle. Her daddy owned pokémon, raised pokémon, loved pokémon: her daddy did not battle with pokémon.

(Her mother had died when Delia herself was three, and she refuses to think about it. She doesn’t think about the accident with the giant, multicoloured bird. But she likes to think that her mother could have battled it. Maybe Delia had her mother’s talent for battling? Maybe it was just dormant? Delia usually stops herself from going any further.)

Delia, simply put, was not good at battling. She froze as soon as she saw another trainer lock eyes with her, quavered when the opponent struck first, and was near tears every time Nidorina fainted in battle. Delia knew it was not her pokémon’s fault. Nidorina did excellently in wild battles – Nidorina took the reins then, tackled and bit and swiped with all the fury of a pokémon protecting her trainer from a threat. But the second the two of them entered into an official battle where there was no danger, where there were rules and regulations, and where Delia was expected to give verbal commands as per league policy – she froze up. She failed, and her best friend was reduced to an exhausted, battered mess simply because Delia got _stage fright_.

“If it is clear that you cannot win a battle, you should immediately forfeit. You’re probably too prideful, aren’t you? Well, that is simply too bad, young lady. Really, being this reckless,” the nurse continued. Delia stared at the back of her head blankly as the woman operated the machinery. She was hoping that if she stared hard enough it would turn pink, that her words would turn sugary, and the nurse would turn around with blue eyes and a lollipop.

Seconds later the nurse turned around with the same peppered brown hair – not pink. She was not smiling like nurse Joy usually did – she was scowling. She held out Nidorina’s pokéball, but pulled it away when Delia went to take it from her.

“No manners, either?”

Delia looked at the nurse with a horrified expression, and just like in her pokémon battles, completely froze up.

“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted from behind her. Still silent, Delia spun around. It was the older trainer with the rhyhorn from before. “As a medical professional, you are not in any position to lecture a patient, nor a patient’s trainer. As a professional employed by the league of Kanto, you have no right to withhold a pokémon from their trainer unless you have proof of negligence. Return her pokémon back to this woman immediately, or I will be forced to report you.”

Delia could only look at this trainer with an open mouth. He was tall, much taller than her. He must have been over twenty, with sharp eyes and a lined mouth. He wore a simple white button down, dark slacks, and polished shoes: an outfit a travelling trainer wouldn’t wear. At his side was a regal persian that was looking at her curiously.

She surveyed her own appearance mentally – messy pigtails, with a dirty plaid top, jean shorts, roughed up sneakers with only a recovering pokémon to her name. She was hardly the picture of success; she didn’t even have a single badge to her name. She was certain this man had at least _one_.

The man, who had had his eyes trained on the nurse, quickly shifted his gaze to her. Silently, he leaned closer to her. One hand was in his pocket, but the other one was reaching out to her. She could’ve move, couldn’t speak, and could only watch with wide eyes. Her hands were clutched to her chest like some innocent goddamn maiden and he was getting closer and closer. Just as they were about to touch, he reached behind her and held something out to her.

“I believe this is yours?”

Delia looked down at his hands, where Nidorina’s pokéball sat. She gaped like a fish for a few seconds behind taking it back quickly.

“Ah, well, yes – yes, she’s mine.” Delia stuttered out as she pocketed the pokéball quickly.

The man sent the nurse behind her a levelled look before shifting back to Delia. He gestured towards the door.

“Would you like to go and get something to eat?”

Delia wasn’t unattractive. She was a lot of things, but modest was not one of them. She had been asked on dates before, lots of them – especially in Goldenrod. Not so much now that she was travelling, but there was still the occasional older trainer who thought she was worth getting shot down. She didn’t usually accept, however. She could hardly stand herself while she was on the road – dirty and messy, no showers in sight, and only the barest necessities for hygiene – let alone a boy who cared far less about his appearance than she did hers.

But there was something about this boy – this man. He was dressed sharply, and acted sharper. He was bold and confident and he’d come to her rescue. Delia felt a blush creeping up her neck, and nodded. The man held out his arm like a gentleman allowing her to slip her hand into the crook of his arm, and led them out of the center. Delia didn’t look back once.

It was only when they were sitting down at a local diner that she realised she didn’t know his name.

Delia looked up from her half eaten meal to look at him, but it was as though he had predicted her question.

“I apologise for not introducing myself sooner – I suppose I was distracted by your beauty,” he crooned, a smirk placed firmly on his face – it hadn’t left since he’d escorted her from the pokémon center.

“Oh! No, no. I really should have asked, I’m such a ditz,” she said quietly as she looked away from him, flushing deeply. “My name is Delia Ketchum, from Goldenrod City in Johto. What’s your name?”

The man across from her smirked wider and she felt herself smiling in return.

“Giovanni, from Viridian City here in Kanto.”

Delia looked him in the eye and raised an eyebrow, “ _Just_ Giovanni?”

“Just Giovanni.”

“Okay, ‘Just Giovanni’,” she teased as she popped a chip into her mouth. “What’s brought you here to Vermillion? You look too old to be a new traveller.”

“So do you,” he retorted from behind his coffee cup. He laughed when she blushed again, but she found herself unwilling to care. The sound of his laugh was deep and resonating; it captured the room and entranced her. She’d never heard a man laugh like that before.

“Yeah, well. I just started a little late is all. Plus, I battle like a new trainer,” she said and pointed at him, “ _You_ battle like a pro – I saw you.”

“Did you now?”

Realising how that sounded, Delia coughed awkwardly. “Yeah, just quickly though. Your rhyhorn was really strong. Strong enough to be a rhydon, even.”

Giovanni waved her compliment away. “We’re not there yet, and even if we were I would hold him back from evolving for as long as possible.” Delia raised an eyebrow in question. “It’s easy to have your pokémon gain strength from evolution,” he explained. “Their stats automatically increase substantially and they’re often physically bigger and stronger, and can withstand heavier attacks. But in our own lives, accomplishments do not come so easily. No one becomes a millionaire overnight. No one achieves their lifelong dream within a week. Getting what you want takes hard work and commitment.”

Delia played devil’s advocate, “But pokémon aren’t humans. They don’t have the same societal systems we do; a pokémon will never have to work to earn money to survive.”

“Don’t they?” Giovanni retorted, smiling slightly. “They might not work to earn money for themselves, but they do work to earn money for their trainers so they can survive. And the methods of the trainers will always reflect onto the pokémon. Other trainers might battle for money or power or fame, and that will always reflect onto the pokémon and those pokémon will always be evolved too soon. Those who battle for reasons that are pure will go the slow route – they will train their pokémon carefully and slowly.”

“Oh, like that old children’s story? – _The Torkoal and the Bunnelby_. My father used to read that to me.”

“My mother has always been very busy with work – too busy to read to me, of course – but the sentiment is true. It is why I am still a travelling trainer despite being twenty two. There is no rush to finish training – if I have my way, I will be training until the day I die. There is always more to learn, more to discover. The same goes for your pokémon – why evolve them when they are only young? They will only be at that evolutionary state once after all.”

Delia smiled wistfully as she stuck a hand into her pocket to stroke Nidorina’s pokéball, “That makes sense. I don’t think I ever want to use a moon stone on Nidorina, even if it would help me win more battles,” she laughed to herself. “It would almost feel like cheating, you know? Like capturing a pokémon just because you know it’s strong and could help you defeat your opponents – it’s just wrong.”

Giovanni nodded along with her. “You share my sentiments, Delia. It pleases me.”

Delia smiled at him, her disastrous battle a few hours beforehand forgotten. “It pleases me, too, ‘Just Giovanni’!”

—

**THREE MONTHS LATER**

“I think you should come home, sweetie. It’s dangerous out there at the moment and you’ve been sounding sadder and sadder every time I’ve talked to you.”

Delia listened to her father’s warm voice from the other side of the dirty floor of the payphone booth. She had always been a sucker for someone asking what was wrong – especially her father. One kind word and she was a basket case. But she was eighteen this time, not ten. She was an adult and in Viridian all by herself during her very own pokémon journey. She wasn’t going to start bawling and ask her daddy to pick her up just because she had hit a bump in the road.

She touched her stomach. Okay, it wasn’t quite a bump in the road yet but it was going to become a road block given enough time.

“I’m fine, Daddy. Really,” she stressed over the phone. “I’m just a little homesick is all, and I’m not going to give up just because I miss your homemade casserole. I’m a big girl now.”

She was going to be a really big girl soon enough, but her father didn’t need to know just yet.

“I know, honey. I’m just missing you – it’s lonely around here. Poké-sitting Mrs. Ling’s snubbull while she plays bingo at the department store isn’t as rewarding as making you lunch every day.”

“Firstly, ‘poké-sitting’ isn’t a word – you just made that up. Secondly, you haven’t made my lunch since I was fifteen, daddy. You really don’t need to baby me anymore.” Delia winced at her choice of words, but continued on regardless. “And thirdly, Snookums is a delight and you should be grateful that Mrs. Ling finds you – _you_ of all people – trustworthy enough to look after her.”

Her plan worked, and her father was quickly distracted away from his original train of thought.

“I’ll have you know that I am a very trustworthy person.”

“You killed Aunt Veronica’s goldeen _and_ her houseplant! Truthfully, I’m surprised you kept me alive, and I was a baby who relied on you one hundred percent.”

Delia’s father laughed over the phone line. She could almost see him rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

“Yeah, well, Veronica wasn’t too fond of that goldeen anyway.”

“And what about the houseplant?”

“That houseplant was suicidal.”

“Uh-huh, I’m sure it was. Wrote a note and everything.”

“Hey, my sister believed me and so should you.”

“Still doesn’t explain how you raised a _baby_.”

“Your mother did most of the groundwork,” he joked and laughed for a few seconds before trailing off. Delia also fell silent. “It’s the anniversary next month, Delia.”

“I know, Daddy.”

“Well, maybe you could come home and spend a week or two here? I bet she’d love to hear about your travels – and that boy you keep mentioning, too.”

The light hearted conversation with her father had managed to distract her father momentarily, but it also distracted _her_. Now, the full weight of her actions was crashing over her once more. She couldn’t go home in a month – she didn’t know what she’d look like in a month, whether her belly would be any bigger or if she would be throwing up or craving weird food at three in the morning. She also wasn’t entirely sure she could stand in front of her mother’s grave and tell her about what she’d gotten herself into. She didn’t know her own mother well enough to gauge what she’d do if her eighteen year old daughter told her she was pregnant.

Delia’s mind ran away from her, easily cooking up scenarios where a faceless woman with ash blonde hair berated her for being so irresponsible. Her father was behind her with sad and disappointed brown eyes – identical to Delia’s own – his arms crossed across his chest.

In reality, on the cold and dirty floor of the payphone booth, Delia blinked back tears.

“I know, Daddy. I want to come home, really,” she lied. “But I’m totally into my journey at the moment. I think I’m finally ready to challenge to Viridian Gym leader, but I hear she’s really tough so I’m going to need to train a lot more.” 

“If you say so, honey,” her father resigned. “At least go and visit your grandparents in Pallet Town – you’re close enough, and their graves haven’t been cleaned since before you were born.”

Delia winced, “Gross.”

“It’d be a nice gesture to them and to your mother.”

“Jeeze, when you say it like that, how could I refuse?”

“Good girl.”

Delia sighed as they said their goodbyes, but didn’t get off the floor of the booth.

With weary limbs, Delia reached up and inserted another coin into the payphone slot before punching in a number she’d used numerous times before. Not as many as her father’s, but close enough for her to remember it off by heart.

She didn’t even know if he’d be home. Actually, she doubted that he would be. Giovanni was a trainer like she was–

(like she used to be)

–and it was highly unlikely that he would be at his apartment in Saffron City. She knew he was from Viridian, and looked out of the phone booth at the cheery ‘welcome to Viridian City’ sign uneasily, but she didn’t think that he’d be here. He was too restless to stay in one place for too long, too ambitious to settle down with a family. That thought alone made her heart seize up, just as the telephone on the other side clicked.

‘ _This is Giovanni_ ,’ his voice repeated mechanically. ‘ _I am not currently in at the moment, and I am unsure when I will return. If it is an emergency, you can get in contact with me at the following number._ ’

Delia mindlessly scrambled for the pen in her pocket and dutifully copied the number he recited onto her forearm. The ink was still wet when she hung up the phone, inserted another coin, and called the number before she could think – running on the adrenaline of hearing his voice.

She held her breath as the phone rang again, only this time she didn’t have to wait long.

“Hello, this is the line for Team Rocket Incorporated, Sandra speaking. How may I help you?”

Delia, momentarily speechless, fumbled with her words, “Oh, I was – ah, um – I was told to call this number?” she said stupidly. “I mean, I’m looking for Giovanni. I was told to call this number to get to him, you know, if there was an emergency – and this is an emergency, I promise! Well, not an immediate one, but it’s close enough,” she let out a breathy, panicked laugh. “I’m not even sure if I’ve got the right number!”

The pause on the other end of the line said enough. Delia waited with baited breath as she could hear the woman – Sandra – move around on the other end of the line.

“I’m sorry, miss, what was your name?”

Delia let out a whoosh of air. “Delia – uh, Ketchum. Delia Ketchum, thanks.”

Sandra made a humming noise and Delia heard a number of clicks and clunks. A few moments later, Sandra was back on the line.

“Madame will speak to you now,” she said brusquely.

“Wh–wha? Who?” Delia fumbled with the phone, almost dropping it, before another woman’s voice spoke.

“This is Madame,” she said. Her voice was smooth like melted dark chocolate, deep and warm and almost comforting with a slight lilting accent – Delia felt herself relax for a second, before: “What the hell do you want?”

Delia jumped. “My name is Delia Ket–”

“–I know who you are,” Madame responded, “I want to know what want.”

“I rang Giovanni’s house,” Delia continued after a hesitant beat. “His answering machine said I should call this number if there was an emergency.”

“He did, did he?” Madame said slowly. “I wonder what the brat is trying to pull this time.”

Delia cringed, “Ma-Ma’am?”

“It’s Madame to you,” she said sharply. “What is this emergency that you deemed appropriate to interrupt my day with?”

Delia reeled, amazed at the conversation’s direction.

“I thought I’d get to speak with Giovanni – it’s important,” she managed to say steadily, “Important and only between us.”

Madame sighed, as though everything Delia said was a mere irritation.

“I have no clue where the brat is. If he isn’t at his apartment and if he isn’t here, he could be anywhere from Kanto to Kalos – it’s useless trying to look for him if he doesn’t want to be found. Too much of his father in him,” she remarked scathingly. “You really should just tell me, I’d be much more useful.”

“With all due respect,” Delia replied slowly, “It’s between us.”

“I’m his mother,” Madame revealed, “Anything that concerns him concerns me.”

With that out in the open, Delia felt all the air leave her lungs and the enormity of the situation fall onto her shoulders.

Delia was pregnant, her father was oblivious, she had ten dollars in her pocket, Giovanni was AWOL, and her child’s grandmother was a _bitch_.

She felt tears gather in her eyes.

“I’m pregnant.”

Madame is graciously only quiet for a moment.

“I see,” she said levelly, as though Delia had just told her it was going to rain the following day. “I assume it’s my son’s?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Delia choked out.

“Here is what we’re going to do,” Madame said slowly. “I am going to hand you back over to my secretary and you are going to tell her your bank account details. After you have done that, you will hang up the phone and never contact my son again, alright?”

Delia found herself yet again speechless in the company of Giovanni’s mother – Giovanni’s thoughtless, conniving, horrible _evil_ mother – and stuttered out a response.

“I-I’m sorry, I–what?” she asked dumbly.

Madame repeated what she said before, and paused. “You’ll be looked after – you and your child,” she said, almost as an afterthought. “I’m not a bad person, Miss Ketchum, but my son has a future that does not involve a wife and child this soon. I apologise if I seem crass or impolite, but this is the way things must be done.”

Delia felt rage bubble up in her stomach, reaching her lungs and her heart and her head in one big rush.

“You can’t do that!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want your money, or your help, or your charity,” she spat. “I want Giovanni!”

“We don’t always get what we want,” Madame said coldly. “If you do not give up this notion of finding my son, I’m hesitant to think about what might happen to you and your child. Or your–” there was the sound of keys being tapped, “–father. Taylor is such an unusual name for a man.”

The tears Delia had been keeping at bay fell down her cheeks and onto the ground as she herself slipped back down onto the cold pavement of the phone booth.

“Well, dear?”

Delia breathed in a shuddering breath. “I... yeah, okay.”

“Excellent,” Madame replied. “Remember to give your details to Sandra – again, I’m not evil. You are your child will want for nothing.”

A few minutes later all Delia could hear was a dial tone and the sound of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. Only then did it occur to her that she didn’t even know Giovanni’s surname. She couldn’t even give her child their father’s name. She burst into tears.

The tears did dry up eventually, but by that time the sky was dark and even then she didn’t move until an officer made her.


	4. The Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash hates his brothers, for different reasons, but the one he hates the most is the one he doesn't consider a brother at all.

By the time he woke up, the table had been cleared from lunch, and the leftovers had been packed into the fridge. He could hear the soft clinks of the dishes being washed in the kitchen, but decided to stay in bed.

He would call it a nap since he didn’t sleep longer than six hours at the most, but Lyra claimed that he was the opposite of an insomniac – whatever that was called.

Every time she did, he would just shrug and say that sometimes sleeping was better than being awake. It got him a hug, and any guy would be an idiot to turn down a cute girl pushing herself against them.

He wasn’t an idiot. In fact, he prided himself in being particularly brilliant. When he was a child, whenever his mother was around, she would sing his praises and parade him around whatever facility they were living at crowing in delight about her son’s test scores.

(Always test scores, never drawings or paintings or poems. He quickly discarded any childish flights of fancy after that.)

His mother called him stupid, however, when he brought Lyra to the prison to see her. His mother, once beautifully sharp with her power suits and bright red lipstick, was dressed in drab grey that washed her out. He joked that the orange would have made her look like a traffic cone, and she called him a traitor to the family.

Lyra had been a godsend, but even she wasn’t strong enough to shield him from his mother’s barbs.

But if he had counted himself as so smart, so brilliantly intelligent, why the hell was he here? Here in Delia Ketchum’s perfect little house with a white picket fence out the front, and an apple tree in the back?

(The tree was in full bloom, big red apples hanging from the branches. The fruit’s skin was as red as his hair, and as red as his mother’s. He took one look at it and said he was tired from the journey and hasn’t come out of the guest room since.)

Hours after falling asleep, he’d felt Lyra slide under the covers with him. He had cracked open an eye and looked at the other spare single bed in the room – the one she was expected to sleep in: one of Delia’s rules – and pulled her closer. He’d felt a little better afterwards.

Now he just felt like shit – worse than before, because now he felt like shit emotionally and physically. He groaned and clutched his head, glaring at the late afternoon sun streaming into the room from a crack between the curtains.

“Oh, stop grumbling,” Lyra chided as she brushed her hair. He rarely got to see it down, and watched her carefully. The ends curled outwards and up, and he quickly subdued the urge to run his fingers through it. “It’s not like you’re hung over.”

“Because we’d know how that feels,” he teased and ran a hand through his own hair, “we’re model citizens.”

“Hey,” she said and spun around to face him. Her unfastened overall straps hit her thighs, distracting him, “we’ve saved the world before – I think we’re entitled to a little recreational intoxication!”

“Don’t you mean Ethan saved the world and we happened to be nearby?”

Lyra frowned, so he held out a hand empathetically. She grabbed a hold of it and flopped on top of him heavily.

“I’m just trying to think up a good story for when the cops come busting down Delia’s door asking for the young offenders – really, I thought you’d be open to more lawbreaking.”

He shrugged and gave into the urge, running his fingers through her hair. Lyra grinned and went limp.

“I’m not exactly a hardcore criminal, Lyra.”

“Noooo,” she hummed and snuffled into his chest, “but you were pretty cute when you were doing all that petty theft – Elm still hasn’t forgiven you, by the way.”

“He’ll live. I hardly need that fool’s forgiveness anyway; I doubt he could even control Feraligatr anymore,” he said idly, but Lyra hadn’t been listening.

“I think we should recreate that time you tried to get me to take off that Rocket uniform in Goldenrod.”

He felt himself go red as the flush crept up his neck. “Ly–”

“Kids!” Delia exclaimed from the other side of the door. “Wakey wakey? I’m afraid I can’t let you sleep all day!”

Lyra giggled into his chest and lifted her head, “We’re awake, Delia! We’ll be out soon – Silver’s just gotta fix his hair. It looks like a mop!”

Silver could hear Delia giggling as she walked away from the door, and groaned when she was far enough away. “Insufferable woman.”

Lyra smirked. “Her or me?”

Silver sighed and looked at her, still on his chest, with an inscrutable expression. “You,” he said softly and kissed her, “definitely you.”

—

“I can’t believe you’re Grandpa’s assistant scientist,” Daisy remarked as Gary crashed the trolley into a display of bananas, “we’ve been here three minutes. Even Green isn’t as inept as you.”

“Don’t tell me to do things and then complain about how they’re done,” he retorted as Daisy stopped to pick out some tomatoes, “and I’m his protégé – not his _assistant_.”

“I was thinking lasagne, maybe,” Daisy said absentmindedly, ignoring her brother.

“Last time you made that we had to call the fire department,” he sneered, “and we have tomatoes in the garden at home.”

She moved onto the apples, “Only because you and Green forgot to take it out of the oven,” she answered and paused. “How about apple pie for dessert?”

“Delia’s got a tree in her backyard. I think they’re ripe.”

Daisy nodded. “I’ll ring her when we get back,” she mused as they went down an aisle.

“How do you think tonight will go?”

Daisy thought about it for a moment before placing an item in the cart and moving on. “I’m not expecting it to go well, exactly.”

“So fucking horribly?”

She sighed and rubbed her arms as they walked into the cold section. Pallet only had one small and cramped grocery store, but it generally served her needs. Most vegetables she needed she got out of her own garden – the same one her mother had planted when Daisy was born.

“Not that badly. Unless Green and Red decide to elope between now and dinner, I think it’ll be salvageable,” she hummed to herself and picked up more food.

Gary shrugged as his attention was taken away by a free samples stand. He abandoned the cart as Daisy turned around to walk down an aisle.

“Where did you get that?” she asked when he returned with a toothpick sticking out of his mouth. He pointed over to the stand, ignoring her frown as she stalked over to it.

Gary sighed and turned the cart around, following her.

“Maybe we can have a cheeseboard?” she mused out loud, chewing thoughtfully.

“So you can sit at the big kid’s table and wax lyrical about cheese that smells like the old socks under Green’s bed with the other geriatrics?”

Daisy glared. “I’m regretting letting you come along.”

“Letting me?” he squawked as she picked out a few. “You made me!”

“And aren’t you having fun now?” she teased. “Do you want any snacks? I think I’m about done – everything else we have at home.”

Gary rolled his eyes. “No. Can we go now?”

As they were stacking the grocery bags into the boot of Gary’s highly impractical car, Daisy frowned.

“This really isn’t going to go well, is it?”

Gary grinned. “Hell no.”

—

“This show is really unrealistic,” Leaf observed. “Real life problems aren’t solved in one hour episodes. This is worse than those after school specials from the 90s.”

“You loved those shows,” Ash replied, “you loved them that much, I remember you running home from school to watch them – you use to steal the remote from me.”

“Only because you watched baby shows. At least I can remember what I watched.”

Ash went to send another barb her way, but was distracted by Lyra as she started to rifle through the medicine cabinet.

“He has a headache, the dork,” Lyra sung to Delia from the bathroom. “I told him not to sleep so much, but he didn’t listen.”

“I was asleep,” Silver replied grumpily, as Delia started offering muffled advice from the other room, “and I can’t listen to you if I’m not awake.”

Ash heard more shuffling and complaining from the bathroom before they emerged with painkillers. Lyra looked pleased with herself, as per usual, while Silver looked disgruntled.

Ash had never seen a different expression on his half-brother’s face – although, to be fair, he hadn’t had much contact with him since learning of his existence.

“Here,” Delia offered a glass of water to the boy and ruffled his hair, “you ought to be more careful – headaches are just horrible!”

Leaf chimed in her agreement from the lounge. “We have dinner at the Oaks tonight, and Green is like, literally a hundred times worse if you don’t feel well,” she made a face at Ash. “Did you know he actually made fun of me last time I had a stomach ache?”

Ash rolled his eyes, “Can’t imagine why.”

His sister frowned and was just about the throw the television remote at him when their mother plucked it out of her raised hand.

“None of that,” she scolded. “Leaf, go and get your brother. Daisy rang and asked for some apples for dessert tonight, so you can both help me in the garden.”

Ash stuck his tongue out at Leaf as she stalked upstairs.

Ash watched as his sister walked away, unsurprised at which room she was going to.

It wasn’t like he was the brother their mother was talking about since he was in the room, Red had ran away for god only knew how long, and that only left one brother in the house.

(Silver didn’t count, Silver never counted. He was never going to be a brother, Ash repeated over and over.)

But even if they were all in the house, there was only ever one of them who were referred as _Leaf’s_ brother.

Leaf had as much contact with Fire as her other brothers during her childhood – which was little, a voice chimed in Ash’s head as she climbed the stairs – but Fire was _her_ brother. They were twins and no amount of separation could’ve changed that. That fact didn’t stop Ash from feeling jealous that his only sister’s time was consistently monopolised by the three brothers (two brothers, _two_ ) who had actually accomplished things.

Their house was on the smaller side – _cozy_ , their mother called it affectionately; to everyone else it was _stifling_ – so noise travelled easily.

 “Bothering him?” Ash heard Misty ask as she walked out of his room – and hers, temporarily – just as Leaf went to knock on Fire’s door. “I always used to knock on my sister’s doors when I knew they were doing homework, or if they had a boy around.”

Leaf snorted, “I wish. Ma has _requested_ our presence in the garden,” she said sarcastically and banging on Fire’s door with her fist. “Come out, jerk. We’ve got a job to do!” Thirty seconds with no answer. “I’m coming in, Fire!”

Misty smiled awkwardly and started towards the staircase.

 “What’s with the sour face, grumpy?” Misty asked and flopped down next to him, stealing the remote in the process.

Ash shoved his thumb out behind him gesturing towards the kitchen. Misty turned around on the couch.

“Just take them!” Lyra shouted, shoving the pills towards Silver. “You’re already so grouchy all the time – if you don’t take them you’ll be worse!”

“No, I won’t,” he replied quickly, crossing his arms. “I won’t take them.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “You wanted them when we were in the bathroom – is the feng shui wrong in here or something?” she looked around. “I can probably move the fridge if you helped...”

Silver looked at the little pills again and grimaced.

“You _baby_ ,” Lyra exclaimed and pointed a finger at him, “you don’t like pills!”

“I thought you were getting the liquid painkiller,” he grumbled. “I can’t swallow pills, I never have.”

Lyra looked at him for a moment, mouth open wide. In all the years she had known Silver, she had never found out this fact. Though, now that she was thinking about it, she never had seen him take any sort of medication. He sort of looked like he had a perpetual migraine, and assumed he was on top of it.

Apparently not.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Misty called out from her spot hanging over the back of the sofa, “my ma had to crush pills up for me and mush it into a banana until I was twelve. My sisters used to tease me and call me a pokémon taking their medicine because I hated them that much. You’re not alone.”

Misty saw Ash raise an eyebrow out of the corner of her eye, but ignored him as she smiled at Silver.

“My name is Misty – you must be this mysterious fourth brother.”

Silver grunted in response as Lyra bustled about the kitchen, grabbing a knife and a banana in quick succession.

“Silver,” he introduced simply, “and I guess I am.”

“A black sheep is more like it,” Ash muttered from the couch. Misty turned and shot him a pointed look.

“Don’t be mean, Ash,” she scolded, causing the boy to frown more. “You shouldn’t treat your brother that way.”

Ash stood up quickly, surprising Misty and Lyra both – the latter who almost dropped the unappetising bowl of mashed banana – before storming over to the front door.

“ _Half_ -brother,” he said dully as he walked out, being the second Ketchum brother of the day to leave the door slamming in his wake.

—

“Gramps,” Gary started as empathetically as possible, “stop.”

He wasn’t a very empathetic person.

The professor looked up from where he was tossing the salad, a glazed look in his eye. Gary briefly wondered if he had gotten into the whiskey early, but dismissed the idea. Surely his grandfather wasn’t that much of a ditz.

“Hmm?” he asked instead.

“The lettuce can’t get any more tossed,” Gary said and pulled a soda out of the fridge, “not to mention that it’s only three thirty – the Ketchums won’t be around for a few hours at least.”

Samuel made a noncommittal noise. “Fetch me the dressing, will you?” he asked and went to chop up a tomato.

Gary scrunched his nose. “It’ll be all gross by the time we eat,” he complained, but got the salad dressing out of the fridge anyway. “Does Daisy know you’re in the kitchen making salad?”

“Of course she does!” the professor stated gruffly. “She _asked_ me to.”

“I didn’t,” Daisy said as she breezed into the room, a wicker basket full of vegetables from the garden tucked in the crook of her arm, “I told you to go and watch TV instead, or play with the pokémon in the lab. You shouldn’t be standing for so long, anyway – it’s bad for your back.”

“It’s true, Gramps,” Gary chimed in, “you do have a bad back.”

“Poppycock!” he exclaimed, “I’m as fit as a fiddle, no pain at all!”

He continued to chop the tomatoes into what was beginning to appear like a fine, red paste.

Gary sent Daisy a look and mouthed _poppycock?_

Daisy shooed Gary away from where he was leaning against the fridge and began putting the vegetables away. “He was bothering Green,” she whispered to him, “so he broke into the liquor cabinet and slipped a little bit into Grandpa’s tea hoping he would have nap, but it’s had the opposite effect.”

“I think he’s regressed eighty years,” Gary noted back quietly, watching as his grandfather hummed a tune that had to be at least six decades old.

“Grandpa is only fifty seven,” she replied dryly.

“Old.”

“You think everyone older than you is old,” she accused and stole his soda, taking a big sip. “I bet you think _I’m_ old.”

“You _are_ old,” he said, and stole it back. “You’re at least thirty.”

Daisy sniffed contemptuously. “You can’t love me very much if you don’t know how old I am,” she accused, “I turned twenty one three months ago. I recall that both you _and_ Green were elsewhere.”

“Huh,” Gary hummed, “are you sure I didn’t send you anything?”

“You rang me the next day to ask for fifty dollars.”

“Oh! I remember” he exclaimed, and sent her a grin, “happy birthday, sis.”

Daisy frowned and went to grab the can again, but missed as he pulled away. “Shut up, you _owe_ me.”

“Yeah?” he drawled, and cradled the soda closer to his chest, “and what did Green get you?”

“Green sent me a card, but the handwriting looked suspiciously like Red’s.”

“How do you know what Red’s handwriting looks like?” Gary asked suspiciously.

“Daisy taught Red how to write in cursive,” the professor stated from his chopping board – the tomatoes were definitely paste now – and turned to smile at them, “he wanted to communicate quicker, and Daisy here had the best handwriting in Pallet – for an eight year old, of course.”

“Grandpa, those tomatoes were for the lasagne!” Daisy exclaimed as Samuel scraped the tomatoes into the over-tossed bed of lettuce.

“Oops,” he said cheerfully and handed her the bowl, “apologies, Granddaughter. I suppose I’m just a bit tipsy from the tea you gave me earlier.”

Daisy had enough common sense to appear bashful. “It’s not like I was the one who—” she began, but shut up after one look from her grandfather. “Green’s in his room if you want to go yell at him,” she offered instead.

“I believe I shall have my nap now,” he said instead, and wandered out.

Daisy and Gary shared a look.

“Well he’s crazy,” Gary said lightly.

“Mm, he asked Green what his name was the other day,” Daisy replied, equally dismissively, “but I do think something’s on his mind lately. He’s even more dithery than usual.”

Daisy placed the unappetising bowl to one side – not throwing it out, not wanting to offend her grandfather – and took out the ingredients for the pasta dough.

“Is that her recipe?” Gary asked after a moment, and neither of them needed to state who exactly _she_ was.

“Of course it is,” Daisy replied, “I’ve had it memorised for a while.”

Gary stayed quiet for a moment afterwards, struggling to think of what to say.

He would be lying if he said he remembered his mother – and his father – since he had only been a baby at the time. But Green and Daisy at four and six, respectively, _they_ still remembered their parents well. Well enough to be sentimental enough to keep the copies of their father’s favourite books, or learn family recipes by heart.

All Gary received was the knowledge that he looked like his mother, and some days, it didn’t quite feel like enough.

“Where’s Green?” Daisy asked, breaking his reverie.

Gary cleared his throat and skulled the rest of the can before throwing it in the bin, “In his room,” he told her, “probably jacking off.”

“Gary!” his sister exclaimed and turned around to face him. She had already managed to get flour on her top and a smudge on her cheek. “Don’t say stuff like that! I’m better off not knowing.”

Gary snickered. “Sorry.”

“You’re not sorry,” Daisy accused and turned back around, “and for that, you can set the table for me – use the good china, too. We haven’t had a big dinner in a while.”

He huffed and grumbled, but crouched down to the bottom cupboard regardless.

“Green’s feeding the pokémon, by the way,” he said with an armful of plates, “Gramps mixed up all their food, so he’s sorting it out now. He gave the geodude the food labelled for the water types, so I think there’s some damage control to be done.”

Daisy sighed, and kneaded the dough harder. “What is with him lately?” she wondered, furrowing her brow in concern, “he’s never–never—,”

“Shown his age before?” Gary interrupted.

Daisy stopped kneading and pursed her lips, “Yeah.”

Her brother shrugged in response, not that she could see him.

“He’ll be fine – he’s probably nervous about tonight. Y’know he’s got the hots for Delia?”

“Call her Ms Ketchum, Gary,” Daisy scolded, “and I can’t say I’m surprised. They’ve been friends for almost twenty years now, and both of them have been unattached the entire time. It’s natural that feelings can come of circumstances like theirs.”

Gary raised an eyebrow, “Have you ever wondered where ol’ _Mr_ Ketchum is?”

“Of course, but his name would be something different – Ketchum is Delia’s family name,” she replied and shot him a look over her shoulder, “and it’s rude to just ask things like that, Gary. If Delia wanted to tell me, she would have told me by now. We see each other almost every day.”

“Maybe,” Gary started slyly, “maybe _you_ have the hots for Delia.”

“Ugh! _Gary_ – you’re being a nuisance, so go and make yourself useful!”

—

Ash smiled softly as his pikachu ran around the front yard, Chuchu close on his heels. The sun was slowly setting, casting Pallet in a warm orange glow. Ash loved travelling – the adventure was more than enough to keep him happy, but occasionally he missed the tranquillity that home provided.

“There you are,” Misty walked outside and sat beside him on the front steps, “I thought you had run off.”

“I’m not my brother,” he replied tersely. Misty smiled sadly in response.

“I know that,” she whispered, and put a placating hand on his arm, “I was just wondering. I mean, that was a – a _big_ lunch,” she said, “a big... after lunch, too.” Ash knew she wasn’t referring to the food.

“You can see why I never mentioned them before now, huh?” he asked with a smug grin on his face.

Misty sighed in response. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. But don’t look so pleased with yourself – it’s not exactly something to be proud of.” His grin dropped.

“I love them,” he swore, “they’re just a lot to handle.”

“You,” Misty said and poked his arm, “are talking to the only other person in Kanto who understands the sheer trauma of being the youngest sibling in a family full of overbearing assholes.”

Ash smiled, sincerely, and threw his arm around her, pulling her close. “We can get revenge together,” he said cheekily.

Misty giggled and shoved him, but his arm didn’t move. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and watched the pikachu play.

“Do you know why we all only have pikachu?” he asked abruptly. Misty looked up at him – _when did he get so tall_ ,she mused – and shook her head.

Ash whistled and the pikachu Misty knew as their Pikachu squeaked and cooed to Chuchu before he ran to his master. Ash swiftly picked Pikachu up one handed and deposited him on her lap.

“My mother was a trainer once,” he revealed, surprising Misty, “she only ever had one pokémon – a nidoran, then a nidorina. She was never any good at battling, though, and she told me she gave Nidorina to a good home just before, uh, Red happened.”

“You child,” Misty teased, before he shushed her.

“She was like, almost an adult when she gave Nidorina away and she still hadn’t gotten any badges. Ma always told me she always got really nervous and couldn’t think straight during trainer battles,” he laughed, “which is strange considering how amazing I am at battling – and don’t try and tell me otherwise, Misty, my head is too big to notice,” he said, grinning.

Misty shook her head in fond exasperation.

“But anyway, I guess I must’ve been pretty young when she told me the story, but I remember asking her why she’d never evolved Nidorina into a nidoqueen. She probably would have won more battles, statistically. She would’ve had a better chance, at least,” Ash paused and looked down at where Misty was stroking Pikachu’s ears. “She said that she’d tell me the same thing she told Red when he got his pikachu, and Fire when he brought home Chuchu.”

“What did she tell you?” Misty prompted quietly after a moment.

“She said...” he murmured and paused, “she said that no one achieves their dream in just a week, and that getting what you want takes hard work and commitment. She told me to apply the same logic to pokémon, especially pokémon species like pikachu who need a stone to evolve.”

Misty hummed as Ash scratched behind Pikachu’s ears. “Good advice.”

Ash nodded. “But I don’t think my brothers took it onboard themselves,” he said and laughed. “Red was champion at eleven, and Fire earned a right to be in the Elite Four like, a year after that. They didn’t slow down at all – now they’re bored.”

“But none of your pikachu are evolved,” Misty noted.

Ash hummed. “I doubt we’ll ever evolve them, to be honest. I know I won’t, and Red’s a stubborn bastard. Fire might, one day, but probably only until Chuchu asks.”

Misty nodded, and rested her head on his shoulder. Ash tensed up momentarily before relaxing.

“I remember evolving my staryu,” she revealed. “I caught them together, y’know, Staryu and Starmie, only both as little staryu at Vermillion during a family holiday. They were that small they actually fit in my hands,” Misty reminisced happily. “I couldn’t tell them apart for so long – they used to get so annoyed at me that one day one of them used a water stone Lily used to hang around her neck to evolve. She was angry for _weeks_.”

Ash snorted. “You couldn’t have given them names?”

Misty frowned and poked him again, harder. “Be quiet! I was only little – they were the first pokémon I ever caught, after all.”

Ash laughed, but Misty chose to ignore him.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I agree – sometimes pokémon just know. It’s not very fair to evolve them just for your own gain,” she mused, “your mother is a smart lady.”

Ash smiled. “Yeah, she is.”

Pikachu cooed up at Misty before jumping out of her lap and running out into the front yard again, jumping on Fire’s pikachu cheekily. Misty watched as a sneasel came bounding out of the house at the sound the two pokémon playing and joined in with the roughhousing.

“I’m sorry, by the way,” Ash said quietly, “I shouldn’t have been such an asshole inside before.”

Misty smiled and nudged his shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. We all have our moments,” she was quiet for a moment before breaching uncertain territory. “So Silver is your half-brother, huh? Your mother’s?”

“On my father’s side, whoever he is.”

Misty frowned. “What happened?” she asked, then bit her lip, “sorry, you don’t have to tell me. It’s clearly pretty personal.”

Ash shook his head, “No, it’s okay. I want to tell you.”

“Take as much time as you need,” she reassured. Ash smiled in response.

“I don’t know who my father is,” he revealed slowly, “I’ve never met him, or heard his voice. I’ve never seen a video, or a picture of him. I don’t even know what he looks like, but I know his name is John and that he isn’t a very nice man.

“Ma had this ongoing thing with him since she was only a little older than me, and clearly it sort of gave her a few souvenirs,” he joked grimly, “I think she loved him, since she had four of his kids, but he was never a very good role model, I think. I don’t even know if he knows about us all.

“He’s in prison, at the moment. That’s what Silver says, anyway. Silver is the same age as I am, and he sort of grew up with John. He’s told us all these horror stories about growing up with him, with a criminal for a father. I know it should make me happy – knowing that I dodged a bullet by never knowing the guy, but it still sort of hurts sometimes.”

Misty rubbed his arm comfortingly.

“You may not know him, but he’s still your dad,” she whispered into his shoulder.

“I know,” he sighed, “I know it all – Ma’s told me time and time again, but it still sits with me, like a weight on my shoulders I can’t seem to shake,” he confessed as he hunched himself over and clutched the back of his neck. Misty rubbed his back.

“Have you ever thought of going to see him?” she asked hesitantly. “It might set your mind at ease.”

Ash shook his head. “I’ve tried to bring it up with Ma, and even with Silver once, but they both changed the subject pretty quickly. I don’t even think they know where he’s being held, to be honest. They want nothing to do with him anymore, which makes me feel even shittier for wanting to know him.

“Silver... he has it worse, though. I mean, the dad he actually grew up with is an asshole in jail, and his mother is in jail, too, you know? Same thing that got John locked up. He comes here to Pallet since he’s underage and we’re the closest thing to a family he has left who’s not fucking incarcerated. Can you believe that shit? He only met us a few years ago and we’re it, we’re all he’s got – a not stepmother who can’t be anything more than polite and three brothers who can barely stand to be in the same room as him. Leaf’s the only one of us who actually _likes_ him!”

Misty murmured soft words into his shoulder and continued to rub his back in hope of soothing him. It hurt her to see him so wound up, especially over something she never knew he carried so close to home. She wondered how long he had been bottling everything up.

“You can let it out,” she told him gently.

“I want to know him” he finally said after minutes of silence, “I always wanted a dad, then one day this kid walks into our lives and says he _knows_ my dad, says he grew up with him. Silver is... he’s fucked up, I know that. He’s got issues a mile long and I’d never want that kind of shit in my life, but at the same time – at the same time, he got to have a mother _and_ a father —”

He looked up at her imploringly, and Misty felt her heart break.

“— that’s _all I ever wanted_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where did that Oak family angst come from.


	5. The Oaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It turned out that everyone knew the Ketchum siblings better than they knew each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy mother of god merry christmas my patient friends. if there are bumps and bruises in this chapter i'm sorry and i will get to them tomorrow maybe.

“I can’t believe you already fucked up this bad,” Green mused as he used a knife to poke at the blackened dish. “It’s beyond recognition.”

“How many tomatoes lost their lives for you to conduct your disgusting experiments, Daisy?” Gary chimed in as he peered over his brother’s shoulder.

Their sister glowered.

“It was an _accident_ ,” she stressed. “I went outside to water the plants and when I came back inside the oven was… it was _smoking_.”

“How can you fuck up that badly, though?”

“Even Leaf manages to leave it looking sort of organic,” Green laughed. “This looks like something you’d see floating around in space.”

The lasagne did in fact look vaguely like a meteorite. Daisy looked down at their former dinner in shame. She would need to throw it all away as well, the lasagne crusted too firmly onto the dish to be salvageable.

“The oven looks okay,” Gary observed as opened it. “Nothing a good clean won’t fix.”

Green wrinkled his nose. “Pass.”

“I wouldn’t want you to clean to oven,” his sister grumbled. “The last time you cleaned the bathroom there was mould growing the next day. _Mould_ , Green. Maybe you can do it, Gary–”

“He sabotaged himself,” Gary said with a cheeky grin. “He knew that if he screwed up bad enough you’d never ask him to clean the bathroom again.”

Daisy spun her head around to glare at Green while Green did the same towards Gary.

“I told you to keep your mouth shut about that!” Green cried, while his brother shrugged.

“I didn’t wanna clean the oven.”

“Well I don’t want to, either!”

“You idiots,” Daisy growled. “I was going to clean it anyway since I’m the one who burnt dinner.”

Her brothers deflated and wore identical grins.

“Whatever you say, sis.”

“Fine with me.”

Daisy sighed before she shooed them out of the kitchen.

“Go and make yourselves useful. Put away the plates I’d set out on the dining table. I guess I’ll just order pizza or something.”

Green beamed. “Awesome. Make sure you order a cheese one though, Red doesn’t eat anything else.”

“Got it,” Daisy drawled as she turned back towards the oven. “Now go. Make sure Grandpa’s still keeping himself out of trouble.”

“Will do,” he chimed as he left the room.

Daisy stared at the oven for a second with a furrowed brow. She’d never cleaned the oven before since they usually hired people to come in every now and then to spring clean the entire house top to bottom. She always felt a bit guilty watching the cleaners work but it wasn’t like they couldn’t afford it. Professor Samuel Oak was a man who had revolutionised pokémon training and even though his mind wasn’t what it used to be, his name alone was more than enough to keep them healthily funded.

Not to mention that all three of the siblings had their own incomes coming in. Daisy was becoming something of an impressive figure in pokémon medicine herself, and her track record in the contests that Kanto had hosted were nothing to scoff at.

Green was doing more than okay for himself. No one ever said that gym leaders were underpaid, although from what Daisy could figure he wasn’t spending his wages on much aside from camping equipment and hair gel. She assumed that both were for the benefit of Red.

Gary was only a researcher in training, but he still brought in a good salary. Enough to fuel his car, at the very least. Though, speaking of her brother…

“Why are you still here?” she asked, not bothering to turn around. The oven needed her full attention.

“You’re going to have better luck just demolishing the whole kitchen and starting new,” Gary said with a grin. She couldn’t see him, but she could _hear_ it, the smug idiot. “It’s really just a big mess.”

“Oh, shut up. I’m not getting a new kitchen. I just need to find the oven… stuff.”

“You’re a pokémon doctor and you don’t know how to clean an oven?”

“I’ve cleaned plenty of ovens!” Daisy exclaimed. “I’m just a bit rusty.”

Gary raised an eyebrow before walking over to the pantry, coming out with baking soda and vinegar.

“Here. It’ll work,” he said as he handed it over.

Daisy gaped. “How in the world do you know how to clean an oven?”

He shrugged. “I’m still a junior at the lab. Being Samuel Oak’s grandson doesn’t give me shit if I can’t prove myself first. So I’ve been cleaning boy for a while now.”

Daisy frowned. “That’s not very fair.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” he replied casually. “I clean the equipment and the break room and get to research anything I like. It’s a fair enough trade.”

Daisy sighed and shook her head before beginning to measure out the ingredients.

“I got the apples from the Ketchums, by the way,” Gary said and gestured to the back door. “They were heavy as fuck too.”

“Language, and thank you,” Daisy said.

“Yeah, you better thank me,” Gary said, and Daisy raised an eyebrow. “It was tense over there. Delia didn’t even offer me any cookies. She _always_ offers me cookies.”

“Strange.” Daisy hummed. “I thought she would’ve been excited about having all her kids under one roof for the first time in years.”

“Me too, but you could cut the tension with a knife,” he said, frowning. “I didn’t see Red either.”

Daisy frowned as well before shaking her head. “Hopefully they’ll be okay by tonight. At the very least Delia won’t have to cook. Hopefully a decent apple pie will make up for us having pizza for dinner.”

“Still, you should’ve asked Delia to make the pie,” her brother commented. “Her baking is so good; it’s no wonder Mimey’s overweight.”

“That’s mean.”

“It’s true! Gramps gave Delia a special diet to give to him but I think she’s sabotaging him.”

“Delia’s not sabotaging Mimey,” Daisy said as she stuck her hand in the oven, testing the heat. “She loves Mimey.”

“You’re probably going to have to use the lab’s oven for the apple pie,” Gary said. “There’s no way you can get that clean in time.”

Daisy sighed and closed the oven. “You’re right. Okay, help me take the apples over to the lab.”

Gary groaned. “Seriously? I just carried them all the way over from Ash’s. They’re _heavy_.”

“You’ll live,” Daisy replied as she gathered the rest of the ingredients in her arms. “Let’s go.”

—

“Is Red home yet?” Delia asked Ash as he laced his shoes up by the front door. “I tried his phone but I get that beeping noise. That means it’s turned off, right?”

Misty nodded as she slipped on her own shoes. “If he doesn’t have a voicemail, it’ll beep.”

“It wouldn’t be weird for him not to answer his phone though,” Ash grumbled as Pikachu clambered up his arm and onto his shoulder. He steadied the pokémon as he stood up and gave him a scratch behind his ear. “He never has anything to say anyway.”

It was a testament to how worried and distracted Delia was when she didn’t scold her youngest son. She bit her lip instead and looked outside with a furrowed brow as the sun finally set.

Misty sent Ash a glare when Delia returned to the house.

“She’s worried about her son, you dumbass,” she whispered.

“I’m her son, too.” Ash replied petulantly.

“I’m her favourite anyway,” Leaf announced as she left the house, her twin brother hot on her heels. “Everyone knows that.”

“You are so not her favourite,” Fire countered as he laced up his shoes. “She totally loves me most.”

“It’s a commonly known fact that children and parents relate best to those of the same sex, so,” Leaf said as she adjusted her hat, “as her only daughter, it’s only natural that she loves _me_ the most.”

“No way,” Ash exclaimed, jumping in place. Pikachu held on tightly to his shoulder. “I’m the youngest, she totally loves me best!”

“Actually,” Delia interrupted as she walked out the front door, her purse in her hands. “My favourite is Mimey,” she said as said pokémon followed her out and handed her a basket covered with a cloth.

Ash frowned. “Mimey isn’t allowed to be your favourite. He’s a pokémon.”

Delia sent Ash a pointed look. “Mimey is around more than my own children, so why can’t he be my favourite?”

“Ooh, want me to get Staryu for that burn?” Misty teased as Ash pouted.

“No, thanks. I’m fine,” he replied sarcastically as his siblings laughed.

“Sorry, sweetie,” Delia cooed and smooched him on the cheek, much to his embarrassment. “Don’t forget that mother loves you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered as she let go of him.

“Okay, troops! Let’s go!” Delia announced as she set off down the path from her house towards the Oak residence, waving at Mimey as they left.

She had always counted herself lucky to live in Pallet Town where her friends were only a short walk away. Everything was only a few minutes away in Pallet, after all. On the days where she missed her children the most, it was comforting to know she could go on an easy walk or even a bike ride to the laboratory and have tea with the professor or Daisy if she wanted.

Delia looked out towards the ocean, barely seeing a glimpse of the charred remains of Cinnabar Island. The sun had set half an hour ago, so the bright summer moonlight guided them where the needed to go. It bounced off the water soothingly. It were times like these that she could hardly believe she missed Goldenrod anymore. Sure, the shopping and people were nice, and her father and aunt still lived in the city, but the calm serenity of Pallet Town had done more for her personal health and wellbeing than anything else could.

Although some days…

“Want me to take that, Ma?” Leaf asked, startling Delia out of her thoughts. She gestured to the basket Delia was carrying.

Delia looked back. Fire was busy doing something on his new tablet – the phone and Pokédex hybrid that Professor Oak was having him test out – while Ash and Misty hung at the very back.

“Oh, thanks honey!” she gushed as she turned back and handed the basket to her daughter. “That thing is heavy, and my back isn’t what it used to be.”

Leaf smiled and shook her head as she peeked into the basket. “Wine and cheese?”

Delia nodded. “Mhmm! Last time Samuel came by the café for brunch he mentioned that they’re his favourites,” she said with a smile, not quite hiding the blush from Leaf. “At least, I think that’s what he said. I hope I didn’t get it wrong…”

Leaf smiled deviously. “I’m sure it wouldn’t matter anyway, Ma, as long as it was _you_ who bought it.”

Delia’s blush deepened as she made a half-hearted dismissal.

“Hey!” Ash exclaimed from that back, earning a glare from Leaf. “Where’s Silver and Lyra? Aren’t they coming?”

“They’re going to skipping dinner,” his mother said with the smallest hint of disapproval in her tone. “They said they were still tired from the journey.”

Ash scrunched up his nose. “I came here all the way from Unova and they’re complaining about walking from Johto?”

“You took a plane, you dork,” Misty teased. “Then we biked from Viridian – it was hardly an exhausting journey.”

“Yeah,” Fire piped up. “Lyra said they were near Cianwood City when Ma called. They had to take a ferry back to the mainland, and then they had to bike all the way from Olivine to get back.”

“They still barely made it,” Leaf chimed in.

“I guess the train would have been a pain to catch as well,” Misty hummed. “They would’ve had to gone from Olivine to Goldenrod, then Saffron to Pallet.”

“Still,” Delia interrupted. “I don’t quite agree with them staying home alone. There are a lot of unsavoury people around here, you know!”

“I don’t think Pallet has enough people to have a rotten egg, Ma,” Fire drawled, staring intensely at his screen. “It’s probably statistically impossible.”

“False!” Leaf exclaimed as she spun around and pointed a finger at him, continuing to walk backwards. “Green is the rotten egg!”

“Or Gary,” Ash muttered.

“Oh,” Delia sighed, “they’re such sweet boys, though. When Green’s in town he always helps me with my groceries.”

“That’s because he’s skipping work,” Leaf grumbled, and nearly tripped over a rock. Fire stifled his laughter.

“I’m totally going to tell Green you tripped,” he laughed and started to run. Leaf made a sputtering sound before taking off after him, the big laboratory on the hill in sight.

“Be careful of the wine, sweetie!” Delia called out as the basket swung in Leaf’s arms. She turned back to Ash and Misty. “Do you two want to run ahead, too? I don’t mind.”

“We’re okay,” Misty replied before Ash could. She snuck a side look at him, but noticed he was smiling.

“Yeah, we’re okay, Ma.”

Delia smiled and turned back around, and Misty felt her face heat up. In the back of her mind, maybe she was thinking he wasn’t as big of a child as she always thought he was. She would have denied it if anyone had asked, however.

“Hey,” Ash said abruptly as he stopped, forcing his mother and Misty to as well. “Do you smell smoke?”

—

“So Green might have burnt dinner,” Daisy said nonchalantly. “It’s no big deal – I’ve forgiven him. I ordered pizza instead.”

“Yes!” Ash exclaimed. “I hate lasagne!”

Misty shot him a look and refrained from grabbing his ear. He wasn’t Brock, but old habits die hard.

“What about the apple pie?” Leaf whined as she walked into the lounge, Fire hot on her heels. The twins sat themselves down onto the couch like they belonged there.

Ash watched them with a careful eye. They did actually look like they had spent a lot of time at the Oak home. He wasn’t aware that they spent that much time in Pallet. As far as he knew, they spent most of their time travelling. Unlike Red who secluded himself on a mountain ten months of the year, and Ash who blew through region after region, he was under the impression that Leaf and Fire spent months in one region at a time.

Although, now that he thought about it, he did get a lot of pictures from the twins of Pallet – more so than any other city or region – and Red often did occasionally down from Mt. Silver because of whatever the hell was going on between him and Green.

Hell, even Silver visited once and while. Ash was probably the only one of them who’d only been home a handful of times since he had started his journey.

“Hey,” Misty startled him out of his reverie by placing a concerned hand on his shoulder, “are you okay? You drifted off there for a second.”

Ash looked around. Daisy and his mother were gone, while Gary had joined the twins in the lounge.

He felt Misty’s concerned look, along with Leaf’s puzzled one. Fire and Gary were talking together animatedly.

“Green?” he asked as he grabbed Misty’s hand and pulled her over to the other couch, attempting to stop the flush from climbing higher up his neck.

“He just left to go pick up the pizza, but who knows how long he’ll fuck around,” Gary answered. “But hey – where’s Red? That should bring him back quick enough.”

Leaf and Fire shared a look between them, while Ash could feel his previous good mood start to falter.

“You know how Red is,” Leaf said quickly, “Always on the move!”

Gary frowned in concentration. “But isn’t he like… the opposite?”

“Yeah, Leaf,” Fire replied with a cheeky grin. “Red never moved around much. He’s kinda like a slakoth.”

“That’s what I thought.” Gary nodded. “I’ve known him my whole life and I think I’ve only seen him in like three places.”

Leaf elbowed Fire as she blushed. “I meant metaphorically.”

“Who cares?” Ash asked, feigning disinterest. “He’ll come back eventually. Not that he’d be much fun anyway.”

Leaf pursed her lips and gave Ash and pointed stare, but said nothing. Misty and Fire were equally silent, refusing to look at either of the siblings. Gary was oblivious.

“So,” Misty cut in quickly as Ash’s face continued to sour. “What’ve you been up to lately, Gary?”

“Not much,” he replied slowly. “Just research, like usual. I’ve been doing some stuff with medicine with Daisy, too.”

“That’s cool!” she exclaimed. She could see that Leaf had winced out of the corner of her eye. “Really… cool.”

Ash rolled his eyes – and made sure everyone in the room was aware of his displeasure – before getting up.

“I’m going for a walk,” he grumbled loudly, and stomped back out the front door.

“Who pissed in his cereal?” Leaf muttered and hunched over as Fire grimaced.

“Hey, dude – you still got those video games?” he asked.

Gary – once again largely oblivious to the tension in the room – shrugged.

“I think they’re in Green’s room. I can go have a look? They’re pretty old, though.”

As Fire and Gary left the room, Misty put an awkward hand on a clearly distressed Leaf’s shoulder. Both girls were exuding an air of discomfort.

Misty rarely had to comfort people. She usually left any consoling of defeated trainers to her sister Daisy, or to Tracey if he was in Cerulean – he had a certain way with women that would have disturbed Misty if he were anyone else – and she had also never had to help her sisters though a breakup, for the obvious reasons. Misty seriously doubted that any of her sisters had been broken up with in their entire lives.

Not to mention that Leaf’s discomfort stemmed from a much greater, more serious problem than a lost match or a break up.

“It’s okay,” Misty said quietly. “Ash is just… y’know. He’s _Ash_. Once he gets something into his head it’s hard for him to let go of it. He’s probably just angry now because he was angry before.”

Leaf was silent for a few moments, only the sound of her soft breathing could be heard.

“But I don’t know,” she murmured. “I don’t.”

“You don’t know what?” Misty asked, perplexed.

“I _don’t_ know Ash,” Leaf said with more conviction. “I don’t know my own brother – I don’t know most of my brothers. I think that if Fire and I weren’t twins, I wouldn’t even know him!”

Misty probably would have worried more about what Leaf was saying if the girl wasn’t showing the telltale signs of someone about to burst into tears.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” she tried to soothe. “Don’t cry, please? _Please_ , seriously. I’m not good with—”

“I’ve lived most of my life and I don’t even know them!” As Leaf continued to vent, tears started to drip down her face.

“Hey, whoa,” Gary said as he and Fire entered the room. Fire took one look at his weepy sister before he jumped over and wrapped his arms around her. “What the hell did you do, Gingerbread?”

“Nothing!” Misty yelled, exasperated. She shot an apologetic look Leaf’s crumpled form before making her way to the door. “I’m going to go find Ash and see if he’s okay,” she said before she escaped out the front door.

“Don’t make him cry too!” Gary yelled out after her.

—

The house was disturbingly quiet when Green returned home. Considering that it should’ve been loud with the bustling activity of two big families – each with their own obnoxious embarrassments – he was surprised he could only hear the telltale sounds of a video game blaring from the living room.

“Where the fuck is everybody?” he asked his brother and Fire, who were both frantically mashing the buttons on the ancient controllers. “I thought it’d be a zoo.”

“It is a zoo. A depressed zoo,” Gary droned, not taking his eyes away from the tv.

“A zoo where all the pokémon just want to be back in the wild, struggling to find food and killing each other,” Fire continued. “That kind of zoo.”

“We don’t even have zoos in Kanto anymore,” Green muttered to himself as he walked into the kitchen, arms laden with the food.

“Thank god for that, too!” Gary yelled after him as he disappeared. “Horrible places they are!”

“I got the pizza,” Green announced to the two people in the kitchen. Delia and the professor were sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of wine sitting between the two of them. Two glasses sat already nearly empty, Green noticed warily. “Be careful with mixing your drinks, Gramps. You’ve already had some today,” he warned.

The professor waved him off and reached for the bottle.

“Green!” Delia exclaimed. “Come here, sweetie. Give me a hug – I swear I haven’t seen you for years!”

“You always say that…” he muttered, but gave her an awkward hug regardless.

“Samuel and I were just talking about you!” she said and shared a look with his grandfather. The professor gave Delia a cheeky grin as he poured his wine.

“Oh goody,” Green deadpanned as he put the hot pizza boxes on the kitchen counter. “Only good things I hope.”

“Of course, of course! Samuel was just telling me how accomplished you’re becoming as a gym leader – such an impressive title, really, but to be one of the best!” Delia cooed. “Oh, I’m so proud of you!”

Green was never going to be the kind of guy who pulled the sympathy card. Even when he was a hot-headed little shit of a kid who would’ve done anything to win he still wouldn’t have pulled the sympathy card – he especially would’ve never pulled the _orphan_ card. He wasn’t that much of an asshole to begin with, but it was also because he never actually felt like an orphan in the first place.

Even though the professor wasn’t entirely _there_ anymore he had always been an attentive grandfather, and having an older sister like Daisy helped – even though she was only a few years older than Green – so he never felt like he was lacking in the parental department. Sure there were times when he would have loved to have parents, and he would be lying if he said he never felt their absence, but he was young when they died and he had moved past their deaths. He had put it behind him.

But there was something about Delia Oak that exuded motherly love. Even with four – completely and utterly equally troubled – children of her own, she still found the love to make sure another kid felt happy and appreciated. Green liked that.

“Thanks, Delia,” he said with a smile, and then felt the delayed embarrassed flush rise up his neck. Green cleared his throat awkwardly as both Delia and his grandfather looked at him.

“So, where’s everyone else?” he asked. “I tried asking the dorks in the lounge but they were useless.”

“Leaf is with Daisy in her room, I think, and I’m not sure where Ash and Misty have gotten off to,” Delia said thoughtfully. “Maybe they’ve gone for a walk? It’s such a lovely night.”

“Maybe they’ve snuck away for a secret rendezvous?” Professor Oak said, causing Delia to giggle.

“Oh, Samuel, they’re just kids! My Ash is a good boy, too.”

“I remember what I used to get up to…”

Realising that his grandfather was about to launch into one of his stories – and seeing that Delia was looking at him with rapt attention – Green decided to go upstairs to get the girls for dinner.

The Oak family house was a decent enough size. It was close enough to the lab too, which made everything a lot easier for all of them.  But the house itself had been built when his grandfather had first started his rise to fame. With the invention of the television and Samuel Oak’s promotion from a simple professor of pokémon to _the_ Pokémon Professor, the Oak family gained a healthy amount of money to put towards creating a family home for everyone.

Daisy told him once that their mother used to joke that they were like a family on an old television show who owned a tauros ranch and had heaps of money to waste, although she could never remember the name of it.

The Oak family home was easily the biggest in Pallet. Considering that most of the houses in Pallet Town were small villas with two or three bedrooms, it was hardly a difficult feat. The Oak home had six bedrooms all up, although two of them were never used and another two were more or less storage for two very lazy boys who weren’t entirely ready to commit to leaving home. The only rooms in the house that were consistently occupied were Daisy’s and the professor’s.

Since Daisy spent the most time in the house – which still wasn’t a huge amount, if Green really thought about it – she was given the best room. Not the biggest, but it was the only one positioned at the front of the house on the second level, and it was the only room that got the sun in the morning.

It was in this room that Green heard the telltale sounds of a crying girl.

Not that he was overly accustomed to the sound, of course. But he did grow up with a sister who had occasionally cried during childhood, and he did own a gym that had a lot of patrons. Granted it was pretty much half and half concerning the amount of trainers that left his gym crying, but he could always tell when it was _Leaf_ crying.

He pushed the door open to the room quietly.

“Hey, there are like at least six people in this house that I might need to beat up for you, and let me just say, I’m not really sure I can take your mother on in a fair fight.”

“Oh my god,” Daisy muttered from her spot on the bed next to the teary eyed Leaf. Green noticed that Eevee was curled up in her lap, mewling gently at her.

“It’s okay,” Leaf sniffled as she tried to stop herself from crying more. “I don’t even know what I’m really angry about.”

Green joined the three girls on the bed, sitting on the other side of Leaf. He leant over and scratched his eevee behind her ears where she liked it best.

“I can try to beat up something incorporeal, but I’m not sure how successful I’d be.”

Leaf let out a teary giggle and shook her head. “Don’t worry, Green. I’ll be okay. I just have stupid brothers.”

“That narrows down the list of suspects,” he said, nodding his head. “You never fight with Fire, so that leaves either Red or Ash.”

“Neither of them are on their best behaviour tonight,” Daisy cut in sharply.

Green winced. Chances were that it was Red who’d fucked up – as he usually did without ever intending to do so. Green had probably spent more time around him than any of his siblings had, so he was more than well versed in the art of being angry at Red.

Ash on the other hand was someone Green hadn’t had much contact with. He knew Gary knew him pretty well, but in the rival-turned-sort-of-friend way. The kid was more or less a mystery to Green – so different from Red considering how similar they looked, he always threw Green off.

“They’re just being boys,” Leaf bemoaned and threw Green an apologetic look. “No offence.”

 “Don’t try and make this better for them, Leaf,” Daisy scolded. “Ash was insensitive and Red…” she trailed off and shot a calculated glare at Green, who raised his hands up in response.

“I live Red’s problems,” he said. “You can’t say anything about him that I don’t already know.”

Daisy sighed.

“Red has issues that need to be sorted out that are beyond you, Leaf,” she said, more gently.

“It’s true,” Green interjected. “We all love him, but his problems are many and more than just one person can deal with, Leaf. They go beyond any of us – you’re allowed to be angry with him. He’s not immune to that just because he’s Red.”

Leaf sniffled.

“Sometimes I just… feel so bad because I feel like I barely know him,” she whispered. Daisy wrapped an arm around her tighter, and Eevee gave her wet cheek a lick. “I don’t know what to do.”

Green sighed loudly.

“To be honest, none of us do.”

—

Back at the Ketchums, the house was eerily quiet. The only sounds that could be heard were the snoozes of a few pokémon, and the soft conversation of the young couple in the guest room.

“Are you okay?” Lyra asked softly as she raked her fingers through Silver’s hair. “It’s okay if you’re not – you’re allowed to be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” Silver replied stubbornly from his spot, resting his head on Lyra’s lap. “I’m being… cautious.”

“You can be nervous and cautious at the same time,” she sung, and giggled when he opened his eyes to shoot her a glare. “Sorry, but it’s true!”

“But I am,” he argued. “I’m being cautious. I’m not letting myself get in too deep, I’m keeping my distance, and I’m preparing myself for when… for when it happens.”

Lyra looked down at her boyfriend’s pinched face sadly. She ran her fingers from his hair to the crease between his eyes and rubbed the spot gently.

“You can say his name. It’s just you and me, sweetie. No judgement zone here, I promise.”

Silver breathed in deeply.

“I’m just… I’m just preparing for when Giovanni arrives…”

**Author's Note:**

> I follow the '[fic: Welcome Home](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/fic:-welcome-home)' tag on tumblr if you feel like you want to yell at me.


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